The Second Year
by Miss Starfire
Summary: SEQUEL TO THE FIRST YEAR. How far will Tony go to keep Pepper out of his life? It's for the best, or so he thinks, but he ought to know by now that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Story 4 of 8 of The Last Chronicles.
1. Prologue

**Summary:** SEQUEL TO THE FIRST YEAR. How far will Tony go to keep Pepper out of his life? It's for the best, or so he thinks, but he ought to know by now that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

**Standard disclaimer for all my stories**: My stories are graphic, angsty, frustrating, filled with cliffhangers, drama and foul language. Read at your own risk – medical issues and subsequent bills are not covered by yours truly ;) If you don't like, please don't read. I appreciate reviews and constructive feedback but if you cannot stand the plot, save yourself and me some time and walk away. You don't have to love all IMAA stories :) I don't own IMAA. My stories are better viewed by using the "half screen" option of FFNET

_**THIS IS A SEQUEL TO THE FIRST YEAR. READ THAT FIRST OR BE FOREVER CONFUSED!**_

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><p><span><strong>The Second Year<strong>

**Prologue**

"So, Mom told me Pepper moved out. Care to tell me why?"

Rhodey asked from his position by the hall as he stared at the inventor sitting on the floor inside the now empty room that had once belonged to the redhead. Tony's back was against the wall, his head hung in shame. Rhodey's arms crossed over his chest and he frowned. He held no sympathy for the broken-looking billionaire before him despite how miserable he looked.

"Because I'm a lying asshole," Tony deadpanned. "That's why."

"Well, I already knew _that _part," Rhodey said with a shrug. He then walked inside the room and joined his friend on the floor, to Tony's left. "But what's the crime now?"

Tony sighed loudly and scratched the back of his head with his right hand, more out of anxiety than from having an actual itch.

"She remembered what I had Gene do to her. She remembered _everything_."

Rhodey pursed his lips for a moment and then shook his head in disapproval.

"Yup, that'll do it. I take it she's mad at you?"

Tony scoffed.

"Mad? _Mad_? Rhodey, she left me! She packed up her things and _left_ me! She didn't even give me a real chance to explain anything! She just… she just_ assumed_ I did it because I wanted out. She assumed I did it to sleep around with other women, even though the only one I've slept with is her!"

The inventor sucked in a deep breath, his eyes opened wide, and he covered his mouth with both of his hands when he realized what he had just said.

"You, WHAT?!"

Tony immediately flinched; he was not aware Rhodey could be as loud as his ginger could be.

"Did-did you just say… did you and Pepper… Oh, MY GOD!"

"Here we go…" Tony said and rolled his eyes.

"Oh, no! Nuh-uh! This is not a game, Tony! You and her… did you… please tell me she found out BEFORE you guys slept together."

"What kind of stupid question is that?" Tony groaned. "Don't you think she'd still be here if she had?"

"Oh, nuts! Dude! This is… this is serious, man. You don't do that to a girl! You…. ugh! Damn, she's never coming back. She's NEVER coming back."

Tony turned to his left and glared at Rhodes.

"Jeez, thanks for the confidence boost. I'm so lucky you're here to help me through this difficult time in my life."

"YOUR difficult time? What about Pepper? You're just getting what you deserve. I told you, Tony. I _told_ you, a long-ass time ago, to make up your mind. See what happens when you don't listen to me? See what you caused? Do you have ANY idea how terrible it was to mess with her mind like this?"

"The end justifies the means."

"Oh, sure! Whatever! I'm certain that if _she_ had done the same to _you_, you'd be taking it much, much, _much_ worse than she's taking it now."

Tony's head jerked back. "No, I wouldn't!"

Rhodey scoffed. "Sure, because you took it real well when you found out that Gene had lied to you, and then when you thought that your father had lied to you about building weapons, and then when you thought that he was building that weird weapon when we were heading to China to stop the Mandarin, even though he was just making a Makluan energy cancellation-gun-shit, whatever it was."

"It was a Quantum Dot Energy Field Suppressor."

"Yeah, I ain't remembering that," Rhodey shrugged. "Anyway. The point I'm trying to make is that, instead of moping around here, you should be on your knees in front of Pepper, begging for her to at least care enough about fixing your friendship to yell at you about what you did."

"She already yelled at me."

"Well, then should be doing anything you can to make it up to her and have her listen to your stupid reasoning for doing what you did."

"Already tried."

"And? She still didn't listen?"

"Well…" Tony began fidgeting. "She, uhm, she did listen… a little bit… but, but then… then I… ahem…"

Rhodey arched a single brow. "Then, _what_?"

"N-nothing," Tony looked away.

"Tony…"

"Uhm…" Tony again rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand.

"Tony," Rhodey began. "What did you do?"

"I, uhm… I might've pissed her off even more with… some stuff I said."

"Might? What stuff?"

"I, ahem, I might've told her to go to hell?"

"What?"

"Not in those words!"

"Oh, yeah! Because that makes it better!"

"I was mad!"

"You? Talking shit when you're mad? That's not possible!" Rhodey said with every ounce of sarcasm in his body. "You _never_ overreact when you're mad!" he rolled his eyes.

"Bite me."

"In a minute," Rhodey said. "What _exactly _did you tell her?"

Tony exhaled loudly and groaned, but then quoted to Rhodey the last words he had told Pepper by the river, word for word. With every word that came out of Tony's mouth, Rhodey's frown deepened, and by the time Tony finished quoting himself, Rhodey had already stood up.

"Well," Rhodey rubbed his palms together in an up and down motion, as if he were dusting his hands after completing a difficult task. "It seems my job here's done."

"What?" Tony stood up as well. "Where are you going? I still need your help!"

"You need something, alright," Rhodey said and walked to the door. "But it ain't my help you need."

"What do you mean? What do I need?" the genius asked, but Rhodey continued to walk out the bedroom and into the hall, prompting Tony to run after his friend. "Rhodey, wait! What do I need?"

Rhodey stopped his walk in mid-hall before he sighed and turned around to stare at his friend's desperate pose. He felt bad for him now, he really did, and even if what he had done was the worst thing he could have ever done to their common friend and he did not approve of it at all, he still felt the pain of his friend as if it were his.

He knew how much Tony cared for the ginger – loved her, and he also knew that Pepper – despite how mad she currently was at the billionaire – also cared about him a whole lot, too. Nevertheless, he also knew that even though Tony had been nothing but well-intentioned in his actions, fixing this problem would take the execution of some serious life-altering happening between them, and the two of them had had enough of those experiences already to last them a lifetime and a half.

"Rhodey, please," Tony said, head hung, his right hand holding his weight against the wall. "I want her back," he then lifted his head to stare at Rhodey and placed his left palm onto his chest. "I need her back, Rhodey. What… what do I need?"

Rhodey swallowed hard, and his once-tense shoulders suddenly sagged. He hated being the bearer of bad news, but it appeared that with his two friends, it always fell on him to be the bad guy even though he had never asked for the job. He looked away for a second, and when his eyes returned to his friend, he sighed.

"A miracle, man. That's what you need."

Tony's eyes glistened before he lowered his gaze and gulped. He licked his lips and his arms fell to his sides. Rhodey gave the inventor a moment to say anything else, but when he saw Tony's hands and eyes clench, Rhodes knew he needed to be alone now.

"I'm not returning to the Air Force until next weekend," Rhodey said. "You know where to find me, T."

Tony did not say or do anything until after Rhodey finally left the apartment, and even then, his only move was to fall on his knees and scream.

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><p><strong>AN: **Alright, my Faithful Readers, here is some of the reward for being so patient with me. I am posting the entire story at the same time and the Prologue and first chapter of the next story: _The Third Year_. This means that updates will take longer than usual while I catch up, but I figure I've made all of us suffer for too long. So, even if this story makes you want to kill me or run away from it, please don't. Stick to it, read every chapter and take in deep breaths while you do, and when you get to _The Third Year_ and you finish reading Chapter 1 of it, you'll just love these Last Chronicles that much more!


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Alright. I have to give everyone a heads up. This story was very difficult for me to write, but it had to be done for the sake of developing several plots that are **crucial** for the next four stories. Think of these chapters as ripping a Band-Aid from a wound. They will be quick and painful but the pain will only be momentary.

Let's all breathe together and we'll get through them :) ALL OF THEM! I posted the entire story, in case you haven't noticed.

**DON'T READ AHEAD! READ THIS BEFORE YOU GO TO **_**THE THIRD YEAR**_** OR YOU ARE GOING TO MISS OUT AND BE CONFUSED!**

**Trust me. The light is coming.**

Like Tony told Pepper at the end of Season 1: _"It's gonna be OK."_

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><p><strong>Chapter 1: September<strong>

Having the responsibilities of a CEO of a multinational corporation and of a superhero gone from her life, the ginger found herself taking double the maximum amount of allowed college courses, just because she could. It had taken some convincing time with the Dean of Students and the Chairperson of the Computer Science Department but, in the end, she had gotten what she had wanted: filling up her time so that she would not think about _him_. So far, however, her plan to busy her mind with anything other than thoughts of her former best friend was failing epically.

It had been little over a month since she had last spoken with Tony, and instead of her pain diminishing by now, due to the distance and lack of communication between them, the ache had just ended up doubling in that amount of time. Nothing she had done thus far – including flat out sleeping with Scott, even though she had regretted it the next morning – had helped alleviate the feelings that were threatening to eat her alive. She had not even wanted Scott that way; she had just wanted to wash away Tony's scent from her skin. Yet, all she had managed to accomplish with that, was spending the entire act comparing the jock to the inventor and, every time, Tony had won. She did not even blame Scott for it; he was not bad at it – _she_ had just not put forth any effort on her part to fulfill the goal of the encounter. He was just… _not _Tony.

She just could not understand why the anger she felt at what Tony had done to her and her current hatred towards him was not enough to make the transition easier for her. It did not make any sense to her at all. If she could not stand his guts and wanted to punch him in the groin every time she saw Iron Man's face in the news, why was that not helping her get over him? Why was the feeling of betrayal that had pushed her to pack up and leave him not helping her move on as she thought it would?

She had moved out to live on campus, just as planned, and her dorm building was very close to Scott's, so they practically lived at the other's room. As opposed to what she was accustomed to before, she had a curfew and rules to follow while using the university's accommodations, and it was taking her some time to get used to the fact that she could not come and go as she pleased. She had gotten spoiled having her own place, a washer and dryer in her room, and a fully-stocked kitchen at her disposition. Not to mention, the constant parties and drunken orgies of her neighbors were beginning to irritate the hell out of her. She had truly had it good when she had lived on her own – with Tony. Life on campus was dull for her at best and annoying at worst.

"_If you can't see and won't listen to me when I tell you that you're making a huge mistake, that's on you. But don't you come begging for me to take you back when you realize how good you had it with me, Potts."_

"Fuck you, Stark!" she bellowed to her empty room.

In addition, and if this was not already bad enough, the constant questioning from random strangers and the media regarding why she had so suddenly left Stark Solutions and Team Iron Man were becoming difficult to avoid. By this point, she had spent several nights exchanging long e-mails with the company's media contact to release a press statement regarding the matter. Finally, after a lot of back and forth between them, the communication would be coming out next week after Tony approved it. She knew he would approve it, even if she was not there to personally point out the benefits of what she had told their media person to say. At the end of the day, she still owned half of Stark Solutions, even if she did not play CEO, and since Tony had declined to sign a release agreement from her partnership with him, she had decided to let it go for now and try later on after his head had cooled down.

_He'll send me the forms when he's ready_, she thought as she angrily shoved another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth even though she knew it was late and that she should have been asleep by now, rather than pigging out on her bed. She had done it before, though, a few times in fact, and even though she knew she would wake up in a few hours and make a mad dash for the bathroom to throw up half of what she had already eaten, she could not bring herself to care about it right now.

Her days were very repetitive, monotone even, and she was starting to wonder if she would just have to resort to moving out of the state, the country or maybe even the planet. It seemed as if it was impossible to forget about a man that had been your friend and partner in crime for years, especially after finding out that he had lied to you for nearly half of the time you had known him and, most especially, when you had loved him as much as she had for as long as she had.

_Stop thinking about him!_ She reminded herself and then frowned when the spoon hit the empty bottom of the ice cream tub. _You're with Scott now. You chose to leave Tony. You had to leave him. He lied to you. He LIED. He doesn't deserve a moment of your thoughts, or your anger or… or…_

Her eyes suddenly closed, she threw the spoon and the tub against the wall and then covered her face with her hands.

_Or my tears. He doesn't deserve my tears._

And yet, she had again begun to cry.

Countless times she had gone to bed like this: belly full of junk food, dressed in nothing but the bathrobe Maya had given her, curled up in a ball and crying her eyes out for him. For her. For what they could have become but did not.

She slowly slid up on the bed and got under the covers. She rested her head on one of the pillows and then held onto the other one for dear life. She cried because it hurt, and it hurt because she cried. It was a fucking paradox, this suffering of hers, and she knew that there was nothing or no one in the entire world that could provide her with an instantaneous solution to her pain – Gene notwithstanding, but she did not dare to even go there. She just had to suck it up and put on her big girl panties and hope that one day, not too far off, she would be able to stare at his blue eyes once more without feeling her heart stop or her eyes fill with tears.

She had never cried so much in her entire life; she was not even aware that her body could produce that many tears in one night, and it was becoming more and more difficult to hide her pathetic self-pity party nights from Scott. She was not fond of makeup, but she wore it a lot nowadays. It took her about an hour every morning to somewhat conceal the evidence of her breaking heart. Scott had not made a mention of how depressed she looked and acted, but she was not stupid and neither was he. He knew that being away from Tony, that the way it had all ended between them, was slowly withering away who she had once been; who Scott had fallen in love with.

It would only be a matter of time until the jock decided she was not worth his time and that her emotional baggage was just too much to deal with, and she could not even get angry at him if he did. In fact, she actually judged him a little for not jumping ship already. As in: weeks ago.

_I just have to cry it out_. _I just have to cry it all away and then I'll be fine._

How long would she have to cry this time around, though?

This was not the first time she had been heartbroken, and Tony Stark was definitely not her first love. Nonetheless, he _had_ been the first one that had actually given her a taste of what it was like to be _in_ love and to be loved back. Just like with anyone else, she had had crushes of varying degrees all throughout her life, but this particular one undeniably topped them all.

Her first heartbreak had happened in kindergarten, when the boy she had liked had left the school when his parents decided to move, but it had not been before he had yelled at her face that she was weird and did not act at all like a girl, and that no boy would ever like her that way – and all because she had beat him at the monkey bars. Needless to say, the kid had been absolutely wrong in his assertion, since it had been her weirdness that had actually gotten her the attention of the youngest, brightest mind of her generation.

"_You're weird today, Pep," he said to her before he closed his eyes. "I love it when you're weird. That's why I fell for you."_

She did not even have the energy or will to groan.

She shifted her body so that she was now facing up, but the pillow in her arms was still being suffocated by her. Then, as every night since she had walked out on him by the river, she wondered how he was dealing with the pain. She knew he had to be suffering too, even if just a little, and even if for just losing a friend. Many of those times, she had found herself staring at her pod, willing it to ring with a call from him – just as she was willing it to do now.

Even though she had moved out, she still had kept her _Stark Bike_ and _Stark Pod_. At first, she had sincerely considered melting both fucking things and sending them back to Stark Solutions, with a bow taped to them and all, but she had decided against it in the end. She still needed a means of communication and transportation, and buying a different vehicle or another cell phone seemed like a waste of her billions of money when she already had two perfectly usable items of such. Besides, as much as she hated herself for it, she did not want to rid herself of the devices, if only for the sake of not giving bad press to the products of his ingenious mind. What would the media and consumers of Stark's inventions think if the former co-CEO of the company did not use the items herself?

She knew she should not care about the corporation's image, even if she still had half of the controlling interest in the company. She knew it was not her job anymore to make the inventor look good. She knew sending the items back would not only help her with the healing process, but it would also get back at him somewhat. Perhaps even make him angrier at her and maybe even make him reciprocate with a similar or worse gesture on his part, thus giving her even more reasons to forget about him. But she just could not let them go. She just could not bring herself to do the deed.

Her pod was very handy, especially now that she had also given up her suit of armor and all the other fancy gadgets she had learned to rely upon. Her _Stark Bike_ was a lifesaver, especially when she had to run errands for herself and there was a traffic jam. The damned two-wheeled vehicle fit almost anywhere, and with the flying option Tony had installed on it months before the Maggia mission had started, the bike was nothing less than essential to her.

_The Maggia mission_, she thought bitterly. _That stupid mission that made us closer than before._

The mission that had her changed her life in more ways than one.

_"I thought about you all day, like I always do. Especially when we robbed this jewelry store and I saw a ring I'd like to see on you one day."_

_ She did not make a sound or move an inch. "And also when we were driving back and I saw this neighborhood I know you'd like to live in with me. It had a park and a private entrance, and there were kids riding their bikes and playing hoops in their backyards. You'd always said to me that you hated growing up in an apartment, and that you wanted your kids to know what it's like to have an actual home."_

_ He cleared his throat. "I imagined you and me there, or in a place like that someday, being happy, the two of us."_

_ He took another step that took him to the edge of the cot, and he kneeled down on it behind her. _

"_Or maybe you'd like another place. Maybe you had another place in mind and… and that's OK," he gulped. "Whatever it is… wherever it is that makes you happy, as long as it helps you see how much you mean to me. How I can't… how I don't want to live without you. I can live with it. I can live with it as long as it is just with you and no one else."_

"What have I done?" she asked herself, tears again filling up her eyes as she stared up at the ceiling and clenched her fists to her sides. "I'm so stupid! I'm SO stupid!"

_"Don't marry him," he repeated, more sternly this time. "Marry me."_

And she now knew she would have.

It had seemed too fast to her, too sudden; when he had first brought it up then. But now, knowing what she now knew and remembering what she had forgotten… it just… it made sense. It felt _right_. Although by now, it was too late; too late for anything like that to happen between them at all or ever again.

_I can't spend my life like this_, she thought. _I can't continue to eat half a gallon of ice cream every night. I can't continue to ignore my boyfriend for the man that betrayed my trust. I can't continue to live in the past. It's gone. It's over. There's no turning back._

No turning back.

She remained still and silent for a while, and her eyes showed how distant her mind was. Her tears were now dry, but they had left a sticky residue on her face that made it feel as if it was being stretched or pinched. Her stomach was bloated with unhealthy food, and her room had begun to stink from the loads of unwashed clothes and empty cans and boxes of food she was yet to dispose of.

She narrowed her eyes.

_Get it together, Potts. You're better than this. You know better than to do this to yourself. You know better than to ruin your life like this. You know better than to let him bring you down._

Just as she now knew better than to try to kill herself again. If a ten-story drop had not killed her, if Ghost had not killed her, if being trapped in a submarine at the South Pole had not killed her, if being Rescue had not killed her, if E-zombies had not killed her… then it had to have been for a reason; a really good one. She just was not sure what it was yet.

_I guess I'll just have to be alive long enough to find out._

With new determination, she sat up on her bed and scanned her trashed room with a look of disgust. This was not the dwelling of a billionaire. This was not the dwelling of a lady. This was not the dwelling of a former superhero. This was not the dwelling of a woman who had been to hell and back for a man that had deceived her. This was not the dwelling of a person that had infiltrated the Maggia and had helped bring them down.

This was not the dwelling of Pepper Potts.

She furthered narrowed her eyes and she would have glared at herself if she could have, but since she could not, she did the next best thing: she slapped her forehead multiple times.

_That's it! I'm tired of this shit! I'm done! I'm DONE! I'M DONE!_

She jumped off the bed and immediately began cleaning up. She walked over to her closet and took out a large garbage bag which she then filled with the leftover food and trash that littered her floors. She then grabbed a handful of reusable grocery bags and put in them the unopened junk food she had accumulated in the last few weeks. She was certain that if she put them in the cafeteria of the campus with a sign that read: _free to a good home_, the food would not last more than two seconds before it was snatched.

Once the floor was free of debris, she sprayed scented aerosol to remove the stench. She even made her bed, as she knew she was not sleeping tonight. The adrenaline was high and the need to start doing something about her pathetic state of affairs would keep her up all night. She jumped in the shower and quickly cleaned up. When she got out, she dumped all of her laundry in the hamper. She held her hair up in a ponytail, put on some shorts, a t-shirt and running shoes. She grabbed a small bag and tossed her wallet, her pod, her MP3 player, and her dorm room keycard inside. She strapped the bag across her chest, picked up the hamper from the floor and sped out of her room.

It was three in the morning on a weekday, and Pepper Potts felt like doing laundry and running at the gym in her building, so she was going to do just that. She had gained about seven pounds since moving out of her apartment and had lost about half of her sanity thinking about him, missing him, hating him, hating herself because she still loved him, so very much – but that was just about enough. She was not putting up with it anymore, and her road to recovery would start tonight; right now.

She arrived at the laundry room and took advantage of its solitude to wash all of her clothes at the same time. She was not just washing away the dirt and grime from the clothing; she was also washing away his scent from her, her tears for him, and the sweat and blood she had spilled to save his life. She was washing away the bitter moments and the sweets ones, too. She was washing away the wasted time and love, and when those clothes came out shiny and sparkly clean, so would her heart.

So. Would. Her. Heart.

Noting the time it would take for the washing machines to complete the cycle, the ginger jogged over to the gym, jumped on a treadmill, put her earbuds on, turned on her MP3 player and ran and ran. And when she was done, she ran some more. And later on, when she watched the morning news and she saw the headline RESCUE RETURNS, only to see that it was Maya Hansen under the helmet and not her, she would not even bat an eye.

_Goodbye and good riddance, Tony Stark._

xxxXXXxxx

Maya Hansen all but fell to her knees as soon as she went inside the Makluan Temple, not caring at all that she was still wearing the suit of armor that seemed to weigh a million pounds just about now. It had not felt as heavy when she had first tried it out, but now, after spending the night fighting crime and chasing minor criminals, her muscles were screaming – demanding – that she just dropped herself to a heap on the ground and died.

_How the hell did Pepper do this every day?_

Too bad the ginger was not around to give her some pointers about how not to feel claustrophobic inside the suit, and since Tony refused to talk about what had happened between the redhead and him, she was shit out of luck in ever bringing up the possibility of meeting up with the girl for this. Pepper was a topic that was not up for discussion, and the scowl that marred his face whenever he heard her name was enough for the future botanist to tell the issue between the inventor and the redhead had been anything but pretty, mutual or planned.

"You really need to start working out," Tony said, already out of his Iron Man outfit as he helped the brunette stand up from the floor. "I can't spend half of the night trying to do my job and the other half stopping for you to catch your breath."

"Cut me some slack," she replied in between deep inhales. "I've been doing this for only two weeks. You've been doing it for years! I'm sure even you had to go through the learning curve for it."

Tony pursed his lips but still shook his head in a way that said he did not feel like arguing a point he knew he was going to lose anyway. The brunette pulled her arm away from him and began removing the suit, and as soon as the armor was off she collapsed on a stool.

"I'm gonna pass out on your bed back there, if you don't mind. Wake me up before 8 so I can make it to class."

"No can do," he said and activated the virtual screen of his main computer. "We still need to debrief on the mission and do recon on these guys. I need to know why AIM is trying to come back."

"What?" her jaw fell to the floor. "You're… you're joking, right? It's _four_ in the morning, Tony. Four! At this pace, I'll be lucky if I get an hour of sleep this week!"

"The quicker we get to it, the faster you can go to bed. Now, come on. Start your log entry while I get the system ready to run diagnostics on the suits and see what repairs need to be made."

"Uhm, I have a better idea."

"What?"

"How about we _don't_? How about we just shower, go to bed and then start fresh in the morning before I go to school? Hell, if we leave now, we might even make it back home, which will make me closer to MIT so I can fly this tin can to the only freaking class I couldn't take online!"

"Why are you yelling at me?" Tony spat. "You're the one that suggested moving in with me! You're the one that suggested helping me out during missions! Why are you complaining now?"

"Because I didn't know any better!" she retorted and threw her arms in the air. "This… what you're asking me—"

"I didn't ask you to."

"What you're _expecting_ me to do," she corrected herself. "It's… it's _insane_! Impossible! It just can't be done! How is anyone supposed to do this every day and not die of exhaustion? It just CAN'T be done!"

"Pepper did it with no problem," he replied before he realized what he had just said and then mentally chastised himself. He was not supposed to say her name. He was not supposed to even think about her and, most especially, he was not supposed to compare Maya to the fiery redhead.

So far, no good.

"Well," Maya swallowed hard. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, Tony, but I'm not Pepper Potts."

And that, he knew very well. And even as she walked away from him and locked herself in the back room, he did not care enough about her anger to follow after her or take the words back. They were true, after all, as much as he hated to accept it, and it was useless to deny the fact that the love he felt for the ginger still burned brightly in his heart.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Well, since the theme for this story is so depressing it depresses ME to write, I'll keep the chapters short. Who wants to cry with me and Pepper, huh?


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N: **OK, let us just breathe through the pain. Just _breathe_ through the pain.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2: October<strong>

He opened his eyes before the sun even rose, just as he always did after spending the night with Maya. The woman always woke up very late the morning after they had been together, and for the inventor that was just fine; it gave him an opportunity to sneak out and pretend he had not again imagined it had been Pepper he had slept with rather than with the brunette. He was not even sure why he had even started sleeping with the woman other than because it gave him something to do – no pun intended. It was distracting and it was an efficient way to shut her up when she got mad at him for being the grumpy asshole that he had become.

He expertly slid out of bed without disturbing the sleeping girl next to him, put on his boxers, grabbed his clothes and shoes for the day and walked out of the bedroom. He walked across the hall to the empty room he and Maya had been arguing about what to do with, and he locked himself inside. He hung his clothes inside the closet, left his shoes on the floor and he then made his way inside the bathroom there and locked that door as well.

The second or third time, he could not quite recall which, that he had snuck out of their bedroom to shower in the spare room's bathroom, Maya had snuck inside and had jumped inside the shower with him. He had then rushed his morning routine, to her disappointment at wanting some action before going to work. Ever since then, he made sure _both_ doors were locked.

He was certain that she had gotten the hint. He was not sure why she had not broken up with him just yet; for it and for many other things he had done to her. And he was definitely not sure why _he_ was still with her when his heart was not in it at all. Maybe he just did not want to be alone, and with Rhodey back at the Air Force Academy and Pepper no longer in his life, that was exactly who he was: an insanely wealthy, young, lonely genius with a very, very, _very_ broken heart.

He turned on the shower head and stood under the steaming hot water for a long time, despite how much he hated scalding water for this process. It had taken the spare room a few weeks to completely lose the scent of the redhead's shampoo and perfume, but every time he was in here, he hoped that the steam would somehow bring them out again from the deep crevices of the tiles. It never did before, though; and today was not looking to be his lucky day, anyway.

In fact, no day since July had seemed like his lucky day.

He quickly and mechanically showered, brushed his teeth – he had a spare toothbrush in this bathroom for that exact purpose – combed his hair, and dressed in torn blue jeans, a black polo shirt and tennis shoes. He then exited the room, tiptoed to the front door, grabbed the keys to his _Stark Bike_, his pod, and his wallet and left the apartment without even telling the brunette he was gone.

He had stopped using his suit to get to and from work because it took longer to take the car or the bike. Since Maya was taking most of her classes online, she spent a lot of time at home, and since she spent a lot of time at home, he tried to spend as much time as he could at work. It was not as if he hated her or could not stand her company, but every time he saw her, he thought about the person she was not, and when he thought about the person she was not, he snapped at the brunette for no other reason than because she was not the ginger he had grown to depend on and love.

Then again, maybe he actually snapped at Maya just because her presence in his life reminded him that Pepper was no longer with him because of what he had done. Or maybe he snapped at her because she had no idea how to help him run his company and always complained about the long hours he put into work, or maybe it was because she did not place secret bets with Howard or Trish about who would be voted out from _Breakdancing with Celebrities_, or maybe because her laughter did not resound in his office during lunch. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because he somehow felt lonelier and more miserable when she was around.

Or maybe it was just because her pancakes sucked.

_Tony's smile was almost instantaneous. He returned to the hall to rest his arms on the kitchen bar counter and watched her dance. From the smell, he could tell she was making pancakes, which was not uncommon for her since she had been taking cooking lessons in her rare spare time, and he could always tell when a new dish had been learned because she would cook it all week. His eyes traveled up and down her hips as they swayed to whatever song she was listening to with the MP3 player he had given her while at the hospital. Since then, Tony had come up with a better version of that early prototype of music player, but she had insisted that she was happy with the one she already had._

_**"It's like a souvenir,"**__ she had told him. __**"You don't replace souvenirs." **_

_He watched her flip all of the pancakes on the griddle so that the other side would cook and she then left the spatula on the counter. He decided to take advantage of the fact that no food was in danger of spilling or ruining her work outfit and he leisurely walked around the counter to reach her. He stood behind her, placed his hands on her hips and felt her jump. The surprise did not last long and she shook her head at him as she stared back over her shoulder. Tony just gave her one of his patented charming smiles before he began moving his hips to match her rhythm. He did not know what song she was listening to and he honestly could not care less. All he wanted right now was to enjoy the feel of her body against his._

_ Pepper turned around and rested her arms on his shoulders and continued their dance. Tony's grip on her hips tightened and he took a step closer toward her to make their virtually tuneless dance work. She took out one of the wireless earpieces from her ear and placed it in one of his. Tony quickly recognized the song as one of her favorites, and he immediately adjusted his movements to lead the redhead into a more graceful dance._

He always took the longest path to get to Stark Solutions, and not just because he had time to spare to get to work, but because riding his bike allowed him to think, to remember, to daydream about her. He knew he should have been thinking about the piles of unfinished paperwork on his desk, or about the redesign or possible upgrades to one of the loads of unfinished prototypes littering Pepper's former office, but he honestly did not care. The only inventions he had been working on as of late related to improving the security systems at SI, so that his father was not in danger of being taken by AIM again, as he had been when Pepper had been in recovery from the Maggia mission.

_Fuck._

The reminder that he had no leads on the AIM case made him groan, not only because it slowed down Iron Man business, but because it also served as another painful aide-mémoire of how good he had had it with his redhead, and how much he had taken her for granted. Maya had been trying her best to fill the void left by the ginger, but he knew it would take her about a decade to do so, mostly because she was not interested in computers, technology or hacking the FBI database. She was dedicated to biology, organic science and whatever inventions her stepfather did for SI, and he did not want her to give up her dream for his own.

"_It's a shame that you trust her this much, Tony," Fury said bitterly. "You'd do so much better without her. She's clearly holding you back. Maybe you should've never found her. Or at least not alive."_

If only Nick Fury could see him now!

He parked his bike at his designated spot before he made his way inside the building, where everyone smiled and greeted him as he walked by. He had tried his best to mimic the company culture his father had established at SI. So far, he had been able to do so with no problem. The only issue he now had, however, was that that amicable culture of getting to know your employees was annoying as hell when you were trying to avoid talking to anyone, especially when they asked how the ginger was.

_"Oh, she's doing great. She really needed that sabbatical, you know?"_

This had become his standard response to the uncomfortable question ever since he had approved the press release his media person had sent his way on behalf of Pepper. There was no doubt in his mind that Pepper had written the cover story for them; it had too much personal detail on it to have been written by anyone else. It listed an approval to a request for taking personal time as the reason for her sudden absence from Stark Solutions and Team Iron Man, citing that after the events of the Maggia stakeout, the redhead had wanted to take a break and focus on her life for a while.

Everyone knew that she had almost shattered her skull during the raid, and also that she had spent weeks at the hospital to recover from her brush with death. As such, the media had bought the story like nobody's business, practically martyrizing the ginger, especially since Maya and Scott were _still _in the picture, and because Pepper still had her _Stark Pod_ and _Stark Bike_ with her. The story made so much sense to everyone. It also helped that she played the part well by always praising Stark Solutions and Tony in public whenever she had the chance, which made him feel even more insignificant and petty than he already did.

"_Fine," he began. "You want to leave? Go! See if I care, but I want you to promise to do one… no, __**two**__ things for me."_

"_Do, what?"_

"_First: you tell Scott that I had you first and that he's welcomed to my scraps," he growled. "And, two: don't you look for me **ever** again. You want out? Fine, I don't give a fuck. If you can't see and won't listen to me when I tell you that you're making a huge mistake, that's on you, but don't you come begging for me to take you back when you realize how good you had it with me, Potts."_

He told _her_ not to come begging to be taken back, but could _he_ go to her and beg for her take his sorry ass back?

Probably not.

Maya and Pepper still spoke on a regular basis – to his surprise, and he had learned from the brunette that Pepper's and Scott's engagement was still very much active and on track. No date had been set yet and that gave him hope, but Maya had taken Pepper to a bridal shop to try on dozens of wedding dresses, and she had apparently already decided on one. As soon as he had found out, he had gone and bought the dress the next day, along with all the other ones of the same type he had found in other bridal shops around town.

Yes, he was _that_ petty and _that_ mad.

Or maybe he was still that very much in love with her.

"Morning, Mr. Stark," he heard the voice of the only other person he allowed on his floor, and he silently waved in her general direction.

Once he finally arrived at his office, he made a beeline for his desk and all but dumped himself in the chair, rested his elbows on the desk and covered his face with his hands. The sun was just now coming up, so he knew it would not be long until Bambi Arbogast, his new sixty-year-old assistant who had just greeted him outside, began bugging him about the duties of the day he would promptly ignore.

From everyone currently in his life, Bambi was the only person he actually felt bad for giving a hard time to. The woman had been an assistant all her life, and even now, in her old age, when she should have already retired, she still had the need to work. Assistants never earned a lot of money in their lifetime anyway, so her retirement funds were simply not enough to sustain her for years to come. Tony had chosen her from a pool of fifty women that had applied for the position. She had been the only one that had been worthy, decent and qualified.

And she had also been the oldest one, which by default also made her terribly wise.

He heard a knock on the door and he mumbled an invitation to come in. A few seconds later, a cup of coffee and a bag with bagels was deposited before him on his desk. He stared at the food for an instant and it brought a small smile to his face before he looked up to stare at his assistant.

"Thanks, Bambi."

"You better eat it all this time, Mr. Stark," she warned him with both a kind and stern voice and a sweet smile. "You've lost so much weight, recently! You keep forgetting to eat and that's not healthy for a young man like you."

Tony's smile suddenly faltered.

_ "Spa tickets? What for?"_

_ "To take a weekend off from changing your diapers, Stark!" Maya spat and pulled him closer to her. "So you better be a good boss and cut her some slack. What the hell would you do without her reminding you to eat?"_

"_I'd be ten pounds thinner?" Tony offered with a shrug, earning him a glare from both girls._

The inventor cleared his throat, looked down at the desk and took a sip of the coffee.

"I-I will. I promise, Bambi. I'll eat them all."

"Alright," Bambi said, not at all unaware that whatever she had just said had inadvertently reminded him of something he probably had wanted to forget. Even though the old assistant had not been here for more than six weeks, it did not take a genius to figure out what was going on. Tony had not told anyone (other than Rhodey, Roberta and Howard, of course) what had really happened between him and Pepper, but Bambi could tell something was off with the story the media had been told. One did not live to be that age, around important people depending on you all day every day, without learning a trick or two along the way, or without learning how to read people like an open book.

"Anything else you may need, Mr. Stark?" the woman asked and got ready to take down notes if needed, but Tony shook his head.

"No, that's all. Thanks again, Bambi."

"It's no problem," she replied, turned around and headed to the door, but then stopped a second before she was to open it. "Oh! I almost forgot to tell you," she began. "There's a lovely live news feed on Channel 5 you may want to watch."

Tony furrowed his brow in confusion but did not say a word as he watched his assistant disappear behind the closed door. He then turned on his computer, loaded the satellite connection and brought up the channel in question, only for him to gasp at what he saw.

"_So, Pepper, tell me,"_ the news anchor of the morning show began. _"What made you want to become a sponsor and spokesperson for this year's Breast Cancer Awareness events? Have you had a personal encounter with this terrible disease_?"

Tony immediately changed the small streaming window to full screen. He then leaned closer to it to better admire the scene and watched as Pepper shook her head at the reporter and smiled.

"_Not at all, but there's no reason to wait for that to try and do something about it, right?"_

"_That's true,"_ the reporter agreed. _"Although, I must say that, me personally, I was shocked when I heard you were going to do this. I really expected you to lay low for a while, especially after the press announcement that you were leaving Stark Solutions and Iron Man. What made you change your mind?"_

"_I guess the press release wasn't as clear as I thought it had been,"_ the ginger said with an apologetic smile. _"I said I was taking a break from CEO duties and Rescue because I wanted to focus on my personal life. I've always wanted to do volunteer work and be involved in the community, but working for Stark Solutions and locking away bad guys didn't leave me much time for that. I'm not doing anything that I didn't already want to do. I just hadn't had the time to do it until now."_

"_I see,"_ the reporter gave Pepper a mischievous smile_. "So, does that mean that working with Tony was a nightmare?"_

Pepper threw her head back in laughter and the blue-eyed boy could not help but chuckle a little bit too. It had been so long since he had last seen her or heard her voice, and even if she was not doing either directly at him, he would take what he could get.

"_Oh, yes,"_ Pepper giggled and waved her hand in a dismissive manner toward the camera. _"It's a nightmare to work with the brightest, most handsome, young man on the planet! Especially when it comes with the burden of having your own car, and bike, and cell phone AND a high-tech suit of armor! Not to mention, a few billions of dollars to spare! What-a-DRAG!"_ she giggled some more and the audience soon joined in her laughter.

"_Oh,"_ the woman reporter giggled as well. _"Alright, I get you, I get you! It wasn't bad. But, if it wasn't bad, then why did you leave?"_

Pepper rolled her eyes with a smile. _"Ginny,"_ she began and patted the woman's knee. _"Everyone has already asked me that question and I've answered it a million times. Why don't you just ask me what you really want to ask and get it over with?"_

Ginny lifted her hands and showed her palms to the ginger in a way that said she understood that she had been caught and smiled.

"_Alright, then I'll just ask you straight up. I knew I should've just said what's on my mind. I've heard you were brutal at board meetings during your time at Stark Solutions, and that you had no problem telling it like it is._"

"_I could write a book,"_ Pepper shrugged. _"But I don't think we have enough time today to talk about those adventures. Besides, I think I see my legal adviser shaking her head at me right about now, or maybe she's just trying to shake off a fly from her ears," _she added as she pointed to someone out of the view of the camera, and it earned her a loud laugh from the audience.

"_We'll invite you over for a longer section next time, and maybe we can get your legal advisor sent to the wrong studio for that,"_ Ginny replied and winked at the redhead. The move caused both women, the audience and Tony to laugh again, and even for him to wipe a few stray tears from his eyes. He did not know if they were tears of laughter, sadness or regret, but right now all he cared about was to continue watching Pepper on screen.

She looked so much like her old self; not a hint that she had ever been through so much. And even though his heart screamed at him to fly over to the television studio right now and ask her for forgiveness in front of everyone, his mind told him that perhaps the reason why she was so happy now was because he had let her go; just as he should have done so in the first place, a long time ago.

"_Anyway,"_ Ginny continued. _"And please don't take any offense to what I'm about to ask: I'm just here to do my job,"_ the woman reporter said with a truly remorseful smile that was met with an understanding nod from the redhead. _"My real question is: is there any truth to the rumor that you and Tony Stark were romantically involved for some time, and that the real reason why you left is because he broke it off when you got engaged to Scott Summers?"_

Pepper's first reaction was to smile widely, look away from the camera and to the floor while she bit her bottom lip. The gesture caused the reporter's eyebrows to shoot to the sky and the audience to begin cat-calling, whistling and gasping in shock. After everyone came back to their senses and the studio became eerily quiet, Pepper cleared her throat and stared at Ginny once more. The look on the redhead was calm and collected, and her voice was steadier than he had ever heard on her before.

"_I love Tony Stark,"_ she said and the inventor's heart began beating as wildly as the crowd had gone. Pepper shook her head at them and waved her hands in a denying motion. Once the audience calmed down again, she continued to speak.

"_And if any of you knew him, the __**real **__him, and not the celebrity the media has created to disgracefully make a quick buck, you'd love him too."_

The redhead took a deep breath and waited for her words to sink in before she continued her speech.

"_Tony and I went through some rough times together that inevitably resulted in us becoming really close. And since your question doesn't surprise me one bit, my answer shouldn't surprise you either."_

The redhead gave the reporter a moment to clarify her question, but when she just continued to stare at Pepper with a confused look, the ginger kept going.

"_Wouldn't you feel __**indebted**__ to a person that has saved your life more times than you can count? Wouldn't __**you**__ feel a deep connection with a person that helped you recover what you didn't even know you'd lost? Wouldn't you want to __**thank**__ this person for what they've done for you, by supporting them in their life in any way you can, until you know there's __**nothing**__ else you could do for them, other than to finally allow them to live their lives on their own?"_

Pepper's words reminded him of a similar conversation he and Maya had had in the past; the conversation that had once convinced him that Pepper did not need him anymore.

Ginny nodded to Pepper and the camera briefly showed that some people in the audience also nodded along, before it returned the attention to Pepper and Ginny. The woman's eyes showed that she was considering the redhead's answer for a moment and then she spoke again.

"_So, what you're saying is that you feel like your job with Tony is done? That you two are even now? What about this connection you say you two have? Is that gone?"_

Pepper shook her head.

"_Tony is very happy with Maya Hansen, and I'm engaged to Scott Summers. I met Scott my first day in college, and Tony met Maya before I even came out of the coma you all know I went through, more than a year ago. They've been together ever since. How can anyone even consider that Tony and I had something, if we've been devoted to someone else all this time? The connection is there, but the paths are different. Why is that so difficult for everyone to understand?"_

"_Well,"_ Ginny flinched. _"When you put it that way, it makes sense. But when I said 'romantically involved' I meant to ask if you two had had an affair."_

Pepper smirked.

"_It depends on what you mean by the word 'affair."_

"_Well, how would you define what you and Tony have?"_ the reporter retorted. _"Because the word 'affair' sounds pretty close to it, if you ask me."_

Pepper looked down and to the side for a moment as she collected her thoughts. The entire studio became silent again, and even Tony held his breath while he waited for her response. The purpose of her visit to the morning show was to invite the community to attend the fundraising event as part of the _Breast Cancer Awareness _campaign she was sponsoring, but the interview had taken a completely different turn by now. The redhead then looked at Ginny once again and inhaled deeply before she began her response.

"_An affair is usually a secretive or illegitimate sexual relationship between two people,"_ Pepper stated. _"And my relationship and partnership with Tony has never been a secret. Neither of us is married, so it's not illegitimate. Which means that if we ever made love or were 'romantically involved'"_ she air-quoted the last two words,_ "then it wouldn't make it an affair, right?"_

"_Right,"_ the reporter said, _"But—"_

"_But that's not enough of an answer for you,"_ Pepper said. _"Because you and everyone else wants to hear me or him to say that we cheated on Maya and Scott, and you wanna be the first ones to find out about it so that you can divulge the word."_

"_W-Well,"_ the reporter began to stutter. "_That's-that's not… uhm, really fair…"_

"_It's not about fairness, Ginny,"_ Pepper shook her head, and even though her words were unruffled and her face was serene, Tony knew Pepper was pissed off to no end. He had seen her act like this with the board members, and he knew that she was everything but happy with the game the reporter was trying to play with her, on national television at that.

"_It's about the fact that I just donated a billion dollars to the cause of finding the cure to the number-one killer of women in this country, and all anyone has to say about it is: __**Hey, did you ever fuck Tony Stark?**__"_

Luckily for the children watching at home, her curse word had been immediately bleeped out.

"_Well, sorry to break it to you: I've never __**fucked**__ Tony Stark. But I've fucked Scott Summers, __**a lot**__, so unless you want to hear the specifics about that…"_

"_Well, no, you're right,"_ the reporter said with a panicked look, knowing she was losing control of the interview. _"I'm sorry, you're absolutely right. I lost track of what the point of you being here is. And, and, well… I-I think we're done."_

Pepper smirked.

"_I think we're done, too."_

The show suddenly cut to commercials without even giving anyone a chance to say anything else and Tony pressed his back against the chair, closed the window that had been streaming the show and looked up. He then closed his eyes and inhaled in and out, his mind replaying the only words his heart had attached itself to.

"…_I've fucked Scott Summers, __**a lot**__, so unless you want to hear the specifics about that…"_

Tony's eyes opened slowly and he sighed.

It was official for him: Pepper Potts had moved on.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Bambi Arbogast really is Tony Stark's secretary in the comics. She even made a cameo appearance in Iron Man 2 and 3.


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Yes, it sucks and it's painful, but think of me as Tony in Iron Man 3 when you ask yourself what the hell just happened to your Pepperony:

"**Life. I built him. I take care of him. I'll fix him."**

And I will fix this, too.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3: November<strong>

Damn her commitment to her family and friends, and damn the holidays too, for that matter. These were the only two reasons why she was now sitting in the passenger seat of Scott's car, a measly block away from the Rhodes home, biting her nails and tapping the floor of the vehicle with her right foot.

"I can still turn around, Pepper," Scott said, his eyes on the road, but his ears keenly picking up the distress sounds coming from his fiancée. "It's not too late."

"No," she said for the twentieth time since they had left the ESU campus to head to the Thanksgiving dinner they had been invited to attend. "I want to see Rhodey and Roberta and Jarvis and Howard. That's four against one."

"Maybe," Scott said with a shrug as he began slowing down the car to a full stop. "But that_ one_ is worth ten to you."

"I'll be fine. It will be fine. I doubt he'll want to argue in the middle of a family gathering."

Scott shrugged again. "I don't know. He had no trouble fighting with me on the floor of your hospital room when you were lying right there, unconscious."

"Yeah, because you pissed him off. He doesn't think when he's pissed off. I don't plan to even talk to him."

Scott scoffed, unlocked the car, got out of it and walked around the front, not stopping until he reached Pepper's side, opened the door for her and offer her his hand.

"That doesn't mean he won't try talking to you."

Pepper sighed, accepted his hand and followed him down the familiar path she had taken so many times when she went to high school, only that this time, it was not a pleasant walk. She took in a deep breath and held tighter onto Scott's hand when she noticed Tony's bike was parked by the side of the home. The couple exchanged a resigned look before plastering smiles on their faces right before they made it to the front door.

"Ready, babe?" Scott asked and stole a quick kiss from her. "I can always distract them while you run."

Pepper chuckled despite her churning stomach and shook her head. "That won't be necessary," she said and bit down on her lip. "But be ready to puke all over the table when I give you the sign. They'll definitely let us go then."

Scott laughed aloud and shook his head at her before he finally knocked on the door. It took Roberta about five seconds to rush to greet her guests, and the redhead was visibly relaxed when she saw the older woman was the first face she got to see.

"Patricia! Scott! Come in!"

The two were practically pulled inside the hall by the attorney, so Pepper let go of Scott's hand to return the tight embrace Roberta was giving her. It had been ages since she had seen her or anyone else she was happy to see today, but the reunion was also bittersweet when she remembered she had met most of them because of her former friendship with Tony Stark.

"I was getting worried that you'd lost your way. We're almost ready to start dinner. Come with me. Everyone's waiting at the table already."

"Alright," Pepper said, grabbed on to Scott's hand again and pulled him with her as she followed Roberta Rhodes.

The road to the dining room was too short for her taste, but even in the few seconds it took them to cross the three rooms, her mind was quick enough to remind her of the last time she had spoken aloud about the billionaire or had even mentioned his name to anyone else other than Scott. She was not so much nervous about seeing Tony again after months of not doing so. She was not even afraid to face him after the horrible things they had said to each other by the river when she moved out. What had her constantly chewing on the skin at the edge of her fingernails and cracking her knuckles until they no longer popped, was his potential reaction to seeing _her_ again after the last thing she just_ knew_ he had heard her say about them.

"_It's about the fact that I just donated a billion dollars to the cause of finding the cure to the number-one killer of women in this country, and all anyone has to say about it is: __**Hey, did you ever fuck Tony Stark?**__ Well, sorry to break it to you: I've never __**fucked**__ Tony Stark. But I've fucked Scott Summers, __**a lot**__, so unless you want to hear the specifics about that…"_

She inwardly groaned and licked her suddenly dry lips. She did not know how Tony had taken her little confession on national television, and Maya's only comment on it had been that it had been hilarious to start her day watching Pepper nicely tell off Ginny Tess on TV.

"_You totally shut her up, Pepper!"_ Maya had said to her over the phone in between loud bouts of laughter. _"You oughta replace Judge Judy!"_

Scott had not been thrilled about what she had said that day either, but it had just taken a simple sex session with the jock to shut him up. It did not take much to keep him happy, now that Tony was out of the picture, and she had to wonder if their engagement truly had any future for her or any true meaning for him. Neither of them had brought up the conversation about making any actual arrangements, and other than the time she had gone wedding dress shopping with Maya and the times Scott introduced her as his fiancée, no other mention of moving forward with the engagement had been made.

_Maybe he wants out_, she thought without surprise. It appeared to her that all the men in her life – sans Happy Hogan – wanted _not _to be romantically involved with someone like her. She could not blame them, though. She kept herself busy and did things most girls would never think to do in their entire lives. In the end, however, this was just who she was. She was not going to change for anyone or anything, and the more time that passed, the more she began thinking that she had perhaps made a mistake telling Scott she would marry him.

_Maybe I should just marry Happy and get this over with._

"Pepper!"

Howard Stark calling her name pulled her out of her thoughts and she gave him a bright, honest smile. She again let go of Scott's hand and returned the hug the old man was giving her, rocking her side to side, as a father who had not seen their child in decades.

"Honey, it's so good to see you!" Howard said and ruffled Pepper's hair in a lighthearted manner, making her giggle as she straightened out the stray strands the old inventor had caused with his gesture. "Why haven't you come to see me at work or at home? Trish and I miss you a lot!"

"I've been busy, Howard," she said as she unwrinkled the collar of his shirt that had gotten plastered with their hug before she looked up at him. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be sorry: visit us! Or at least show your face during one board meeting to make Mitch Richards groan."

Pepper laughed aloud while she imagined the look on the irritable man's face, if she were to visit Howard during a board conference. She had not seen or heard of any her former headaches since she had left Stark Solutions, and other than the sporadic, friendly e-mail from Diane Tincher, the redhead had had very little contact with the group of greedy clowns that ran SI.

"Your idea sounds tempting."

"Then, you should take it," he said and gave her one last hug. "But anyway, don't let me keep you from saying hi to everyone else. I'm so happy you stopped by."

"Thank you," she said to him and then continued her trek further into the dining room, knowing that Scott would be fine without her presence at his side. Her eyes then landed on Jarvis and David arguing about the butler trying to help set up the table, and the redhead's face beamed.

"Edwin, really, let me and Roberta do this. Just, relax."

"But, sir –"

"David."

"Mister David, I…"

"JARVIS!" Pepper yelled on purpose to distract the butler. David gave her a thankful thumbs-up and a welcoming nod when she hugged Jarvis from the side, effectively leaving him unable to move and help out. "I've missed you, Jarvis! Did you miss me?"

"Miss Potts."

"Pepper," she said and let go of him. "Name's Pepper, remember?"

"Pepper," he said with a smile, held her hands in his and gave them a small kiss. "It's so good to see you up and about, Madame. How have you fared?"

"I've fared very well," Pepper said and had to keep from bowing down to the man. He always spoke so properly to everyone that it made her want to learn a thing or two about his demeanor, if only to scare the crap out of the people who knew how uncivilized she could sometimes act. "How have you been?"

"Pretty busy at the tower. It's so much larger than I remember it being a long time ago."

"We all grow up, Jarvis," she winked at him. "Like I am. I'm making my own breakfast now."

"You should stop by the penthouse and I'll make you a wonderful meal, anytime you want."

"Another temptation!" Pepper said with a dramatic tone and heightened it by briefly covering her eyes with the back of her hand. "Mind if I bring over the fiancé?"

"Of course not. It'll be my honor to serve you both."

"Aww," she hugged the man again. "It's been too long."

"Too long, indeed. Oh, I think there's someone else who would like to greet you," Jarvis said and then pointed behind her. The ginger gave Jarvis one last hug, and then turned around to see someone she had not seen in more than a year.

"RHODEY!"

She all but tackled him down on the floor, earning her a painful groan from the boy. She then giggled as she got up from him and lent him a hand he gratefully accepted, and he was up with her in no time.

"Rhodey, look at you! You… you're so tall and, _man_! Somebody's been working out!" she poked the muscles of his shoulders with her fingers.

Rhodey laughed aloud and playfully pulled on Pepper's hair. "And someone's favoring the long hair now, I see."

"Yeah," she said with a shrug and a smirk. "I've been thinking about cutting it again, but Scott likes it this way."

"I'm sure he does," he said in a tone that was not immediately clear to her what it had meant but she shrugged it off. "It looks good on you. Anyway, how've you been, Pep? I don't think I've seen you since you got that cold."

"Yeah," she said with a sad smile. The memories of that day briefly returning to her but she pushed them away. "It's been a long time."

"Well, we'll have plenty of time to catch up tonight. I'm sure you have loads to talk about. I mean, more than usual," he said with a smile.

"Teasing me again, Rhodes?" she placed her hands on her hips. "Keep it up and you'll never get to eat my famous pancakes!"

"Pancakes?" Rhodey rolled his eyes. "What's so special about pancakes?"

"They're the best you'll ever have in your entire life," a third voice – a male voice – said from behind and Pepper froze. She swallowed hard and clenched her eyes briefly to calm down, and once she again had her wits about her, she slowly turned around, only to receive a hug from Maya Hansen.

"Pepper! Happy Thanksgiving!"

"Happy Thanksgiving, Maya!" Pepper responded with enthusiasm that she did not feel and returned the embrace the brunette was giving her. The woman finally pulled away with a smile and Pepper had to muster one of her own.

"So, what's so special about your pancakes? Tony told me they're really good," Maya said and then pointed with her right thumb towards the inventor standing behind her. "You have to stop by the apartment one of these days and make me some."

Pepper did not dare to look behind the future botanist and just nodded. "Just give me a call," the redhead said. "I'll make some and drop them off."

"Drop them off? Hell, no!" the brunette spat. "I want fresh ones, straight out of the pan!"

"Maybe you can come over to our house and she can make you some," Pepper silently sigh in relief when she heard his voice, and her shoulders relaxed when she felt a pair of arms surround her waist from behind. "Doesn't that sound like a good idea, Pepper?"

"You guys have a house?" Maya asked, the shock evident in her eyes. "I didn't know that! When did you buy it?"

"We don't, we haven't… yet," Pepper began and then rested her arms on Scott's. "We've been looking at houses, but we haven't decided on one yet."

"Oh, OK!" Maya replied. "Besides, you can't be looking at houses without having the wedding first."

"Why not?" Scott asked with a smile. "You and Tony aren't even engaged and you live together, right?"

"Touché!" Maya said with a wink before she turned around and pulled Tony by his right arm to stand next to her. "Did you catch that, Honey? We're doing it backwards. You need to start thinking about what ring to buy me."

When the ginger and inventor's eyes met, they both forgot how to breathe. Everyone currently present in the room knew they had had a fight, a big one at that, but they were all acting as if nothing was off between the two. Maya was not sure what the argument had been about, and she was under the impression that Pepper had moved out to be closer to Scott. Scott thought the fight had been just about Tony using some sort of alien voodoo to make Pepper forget about her past, and he was not aware of how close he had come to losing Pepper to Tony Stark. So, since Rhodey was the only person other than the ginger and the blue-eyed boy that knew what had really occurred, he was the one who broke the ice and cleared his throat to pull the former couple out of their reverie.

"It'll be easier if you just show him what you want, Maya," Rhodey said and walked closer to the foursome. "The guy's helpless when it comes to buying stuff for anyone. If I know Tony, and I do, he'll probably just show you what he wants to buy you, tell you it's for someone else and then buy it later when you least expect it."

The inventor visibly flinched at that and Pepper coughed, both remembering that this had been exactly what Tony had done to decide which necklace to give the redhead for her 18th birthday.

"Don't give away the secrets," Tony said between clenched teeth, glaring deeply at the future military man. "She's supposed to find out on her own, at the right time."

"Sorry, dude, it's my job to warn the girl of how much of a _jerk_ you can be sometimes."

"Meh," Maya shrugged. "I think I already have a good idea, Rhodey. Too late to warn me now."

"Sorry," Rhodey shrugged. "I tried."

"Oh, there's everyone else!" Roberta said and waved them over closer to the table. "We're ready for you. Come on."

The five teens nodded to the woman and then silently walked over to the table, each taking a brief moment to decide where to sit. Howard, Jarvis and David were already in their seats. David sat on one end of the ten-person table and Roberta had just sat on the opposite side of where David sat. Howard sat to David's left and Jarvis sat to Roberta's right, leaving two seats available between Howard and Jarvis, and four available on the other side of the table, directly across from the butler and the old inventor.

Pepper made a sign to Scott for them to sit between Howard and Jarvis, but before she could make the move, Maya appeared in between them and dragged Scott away with her to take them both to the two seats Pepper had wanted to use for herself.

"Come on, Scottie," Maya said and all but pushed Scott to sit in the chair next to Howard while she took the one next to Jarvis. "Rhodey, Pepper and Tony hardly ever hang out together anymore. Let's leave them to catch up, huh?"

"Yay," Rhodey said in a monotone voice before he sighed and sat in one of the two middle chairs, leaving Tony and Pepper to sit on either side of him.

_This is going to be a long night_, James thought with disdain and prepared himself for an even more awkward conversation to follow.

Later that night, at some point during the family dinner, the topic of porn stars would somehow be brought up, and Tony would spit his drink while Pepper would almost choke on her turkey, both actions taking place immediately before a quick, knowing look would be shared between them and they would blush.

No one would be brave enough to ask the two teens what had ensued, and they would both be grateful for that.

xxxXXXxxx

"Maya's right, you know?" Scott told the redhead after sharing a long kiss on the balcony they had escaped to for a moment while the adults talked about how much the teens had grown. "You may hate Stark right now, but that doesn't mean you should waste your only chance to see Rhodey. Who knows when you'll see him again, right? Besides, you don't have to talk to Tony directly. You could just talk to Rhodey and not ever have to direct a word at the rich jerk."

Pepper sighed loudly and closed her eyes. That had been exactly what she had done when she had been mad at him before. If it had worked before, there was no reason why it would not work now.

"I guess… I guess you're right. I just wish I could just pull Rhodey away from Tony, but I'm sure Tony misses him, too. They've known each other for almost their entire life, though, and I've only known Rhodey since middle school. I should probably just leave them alone."

"Come on, Pepper," Scott cupped Pepper's face, heartbroken that his fiancée was not enjoying herself. "You can't keep avoiding the jerk your entire life. Bottom line is that you two share family, friends and a company and it's going to be impossible to ever truly not see or have to talk to him again. Be the bigger person, babe. Show him that you're mature enough to deal with this in a way he never will. Make him see that you're better than this."

The redhead groaned but nodded. So far, they had not said a thing to each other. She had been trying her best to not even stare at him at all, but she knew that the time would come when this would no longer be an option. She had to listen to Scott and Maya. As different as their motivations for throwing Tony, Pepper and Rhodey together were, in the end they were both correct.

"What will you do while I'm gone?"

Scott shrugged. "Get to know everyone else, I guess. I can blend in, despite wearing sunglasses indoors."

Pepper gave him a grateful smile and a peck on the cheek, and she was painfully reminded of why she had liked the guy in the first place.

"You're too good for me, you know that?" she whispered to him.

"I'd like to think I'm good enough," he responded and she giggled. "Now go, before the night ends and our ride turns into a pumpkin and we can't get out of here."

"OK," Pepper said. "I'll be back soon."

"Not too soon," he added with a smile that quickly left him when she disappeared from sight. He then went inside and joined the rest of the group to listen to stories about the adventures of the superhero trio that would only serve to remind him why he and Pepper could never truly be happy together, despite all his attempts at making her smile.

xxxXXXxxx

Pepper rounded the corner of the home and then ran toward the charred remains of what had been the first armory. The place was not safe or usable at all anymore, but Roberta and David were yet to hear from Howard Stark what he had wanted to do with the failing structure. As such, the location was still standing – or as much as it could be after being blown up by the Tong. Tony had made sure nothing of his tech remained there, and that only memories and sentimental value were left in its wake.

She picked up the pace when she heard the loud voices of the two men she had come to seek, and before her presence was to be known by them, she stopped in her tracks when she realized she had no idea what she was going to do or say. How was she supposed to start the conversation? How could she keep it from being as uncomfortable as she already knew it was going to be? How would she even be able to talk to Rhodey without talking to Tony while he was right there?

_Be the bigger person_, she reminded herself. _Just walk right in there like nothing has happened, and don't forget to breathe._

She took in a deep breath to make her point and to announce her arrival to the soon-to-be-former teens, but the angry words that she then heard being uttered made her stop herself from saying anything at all.

"I'm telling you, Rhodey, it's so hard _not_ to punch her in the face right now. Seriously! I mean, I know you never hit woman and blah-blah-blah, but I can't stand her! I literally CANNOT stand her guts! I mean, she knows about it, too, right? It's not news to her, right? She hates me too, right? It's mutual, right?"

"I… I guess…" Rhodey said, not able to believe his ears.

"Yes! It IS! It SO is! So, why? WHY is she here in the first place? She's just ruining my time with everyone else! Pissing the fuck out of me every second she's here. She's acting like nothing ever happened, like if we didn't tell each other off! And she's all smiles and giggles with everyone, as if she belongs here. She. DOESN'T. Belong. Here. She should leave right now! Why did she even come?"

"Because my mom invited her?"

"EXACTLY! But still, she has no business here. It's like, what is she, stupid or something? I don't even know why I slept with her. Worst mistake _ever_. I wish I could take it back but… but I can't! It's done and I have to live with it! What else am I supposed to do to make her understand? I want her out of my life, gone! Disappeared! FOREVER! If I could prevent us from ever meeting, I would. I wish I'd never met her, really. I wish I'd never been at that fucking roof that day! What else am I supposed to do for her to get the hint, huh? Tell her off again? Beat her up?"

"Dude, seriously," Rhodey said with a growl. "First: fucking chill. That's my friend you're talking about. And two: if you keep talking about Pepper like that, I'M gonna beat _you_ up."

"Well, I'm sorry, Rhodey! That's just how I feel!" the inventor said, threw his arms in the air, kicked a broken chair and groaned loudly, giving the ginger enough time and cover to run away from the place, unnoticed, as fast as her legs could take her, tears in her eyes; not stopping until she found Scott, and then rushed away from the home with the excuse that she was not feeling well.

She really was not.

Tony then sighed loudly once his little physical aggravation was over, and then jerked his head back.

"Wait, _what_?" he began as he replayed Rhodey's words in his mind. "Did you just say 'Pepper'?"

"Yeah?" Rhodey's scowl was still set on his face and his arms were crossed over his chest.

"I'm not talking about Pepper! I'm talking about Maya!"

"Oh," Rhodey said with surprise and then frowned.

"Come on, Rhodey, get with the program! Why would you _think_ I meant _Pepper_? I don't want to hurt her! I _still_ love her!"

"Well," Rhodey stumbled with his words, feeling like a fool for wanting to punch the inventor himself just a few seconds ago. "You-you said you slept with her… and that you're mad at each other… and then… the roof and…"

"I met Maya on the roof of Stark International."

"Oh," Rhodey bit his lip. "See, you never told me about that until now."

"Ugh, forget it," Tony said and sighed before he dumped himself on the ground. "This is just so screwed up. I'm dating and living with a girl with whom I argue every day, and Scott and Pepper are picking China patterns. How… _when _did it get this fucked up?"

"Essentially, I think it was around the time you thought it was a good idea to go out with Whitney. More specifically, maybe around the time you opened your mouth and put your incredibly large foot inside it by telling Pepper she could go to hell."

"Don't remind me, please."

"You asked!"

"It was rhetorical!"

"Whatever," Rhodey rolled his eyes. "You're making it worse than it should be, you know? You should just break up with Maya and then move to Tibet and not come back until you forget about Pepper. Problem solved."

"I _could_ break up with Maya. Or at least try again," the blue-eyed boy shrugged. "But the Tibet thing…" the inventor smiled sadly and shook his head. "Unless you never want to hear about me ever again…"

"It's not impossible, T. It's not rocket science," Rhodey said and sat next to his friend on the ground. "And even if it were, you're a genius, right? You'd figure it out. People do it all the time. You break up, sulk over it and then move on. You'll get over Pepper, just as she's obviously gotten over you. You just gotta give it time."

"I know I can, Rhodey. That's not the issue."

"But you don't want to," Rhodey said and when Tony shook his head, he sighed. "Well, I can't help you, then," James said and stood up. "No one can help you if you don't want to help yourself. Wanna come back home and sulk in there? It's getting cold out here."

"Nah," Tony said. "I'm OK."

"Are you sure?" Rhodey asked and when Tony nodded, the military cadet shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Tony watched his friend walk away; leaving him to wonder how long it would be until his absence was noticed by the woman that had forced her way into his life. The woman he wished he had never known about.


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Just keep telling yourself this: "Miss Starfire is going to fix this. Miss Starfire is going to fix this."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4: December<strong>

She never thought she would ever set foot in this place ever again, especially after giving up being Rescue, but yet here she was, waiting patiently for her turn to be escorted to see a woman she never thought she would ever want to see again in her life. She was still surprised that Nick Fury had even returned her call, given their unpleasant history, and she was even more surprised that he had agreed for her to come and do this at all. But she figured this was the man's silent way to say _sorry_ and _thank you_ to her for the zombie mission that had almost gotten her killed. That was as close as a sign of gratitude she was ever going to get from the one-eyed General, and she was alright with that.

Her efforts not to think about the inventor had tripled since last month, but their results so far were inversely proportional to how much she tried to forget about him. In other words: the more she tried to forget, the less she could stop thinking about him. Her plans to forever rid herself of his presence in her life included the beginning of her transfer to Berkeley University on the West Coast, the brief consideration of changing her adopted name to her birth name – the only thing stopping her on that one was the fact that she loved her father – and she had even considered joining the Peace Corps and never return to the States ever again. The sudden change of lifestyle, city and state had been the root of plenty of arguments between Scott and herself, but if Scott wanted to break the engagement simply because she needed a breath of fresh air, then so be it.

In addition to leaving the city, the ginger was also planning to completely disconnect herself from Stark Solutions in any way she could. She had hired Roberta as her main legal representative, and the woman was now hard at work trying to find a loophole in the legal documents she had, ironically enough, drafted herself for Pepper and Tony when they had taken over Hammer Multinational. Pepper had not gone into much detail regarding why she wanted out of the most influential technology company in the world, but the lawyer figured it had something to do with the broken relationship between her and Tony.

How everyone wished for the two of them to finally see eye-to-eye, and perhaps even realize how much time they were wasting due to their pride, to a simple misunderstanding! Everyone except Maya and Scott, of course. But everyone who had known the pair for longer than they had, truly wanted the two to just work things out. It was painful for them to see them like this, and even if they did not talk about it with anyone, they could see how much damage it was doing to them; mentally and even physically.

"Miss Potts?" the redhead heard Maria Hill call from her right side and she looked up at the smiling woman as if she had not been completely lost in her own thoughts just now.

Pepper sometimes wondered why in the hell did the woman put up with the General's antics, seeing as he had a worse temper than Gene on a bad day. She knew Maria was not a pushover, but the agent had never been anything but kind to her. Even that time when she had been literally thrown from the Quinjet after her repetitive questions, it had not been her but one of the other agents that had kicked her out. Pepper could only guess that perhaps the relationship between Maria and Fury was like the one she and Tony had had when working at Stark Solutions: everyone saw them work together in harmony, but behind closed doors, she would not hold back at telling him off when he screwed up.

The idea of a screaming Maria Hill jumping high to reach the back of Nick Fury's head to whack him when mad was amusing to the ginger. The realization that she had thought about Tony once more, was not.

"We're ready for you."

Pepper nodded, stood up from the chair and followed the agent down the narrow hall she had been waiting in. The redhead was very familiar with the layout of the Helicarrier, so when she realized they were not heading to the maximum security detention section of the flying fortress, she frowned. And when she realized they were walking towards the medical isolation facility, her frown deepened.

"Agent Hill, where are we going?"

The woman looked over her shoulder at the ginger and smirked.

"I know you know where we're going. We're aware that you and Stark have the blueprints to the ship. What I think you don't know is _why_ we're going where we are."

"Is Whitney sick?" Pepper asked and picked up her pace to walk next to the second-in-command of the S.H.I.E.L.D. forces.

"I guess you can say that," Maria shrugged. "Didn't Stark tell you what your friend, the Mandarin, did to Miss Stane?"

Pepper was taken aback at hearing there was yet something else Tony Stark had not told her about. She knew she should not have been surprised about the jerk keeping more secrets from her, but this was one that had been kept tightly under wraps even for her research skills. Nothing in the logs of her kidnapping mentioned what had occurred to Whitney, other than stating she was returned to the Helicarrier for perhaps the rest of her life. And they most certainly did _not _mention that Gene had had any involvement in the blonde's fate – whatever that had been and she was about to find out.

"No," Pepper said with a shrug before she took a wild guess. "Did Gene wipe away her memories, too?"

Maria shook her head.

"We don't exactly know what he did to her. He never really explained it to anyone other than Tony, and even he didn't tell us what it was. Tony just said that she was staying like that. We think that it does have something to do with the Makluan rings. But other than that, we don't know to what extent, or if any long-term side-effects should be expected from it."

Pepper remained silent for a moment. She then took out her _Stark Pod_ and connected it to the Iron Man database at the Makluan Temple, to which she still had access to – all things considered, and to her constant disbelief every time she pulled information from it and from the private servers at Stark Solutions to which only she and Tony had access to.

"Maybe I can help you understand," Pepper said after a pause. "Maybe I can help you help her."

Maria could not help it when her eyebrows shot up, shock evident on her face at hearing Pepper's words.

"That'd be quite ironic, Miss Potts. Ironic and brave."

"Well, I'm no longer Tony's girlfriend," she said and tried to make the comment and moment sound lighthearted even though it truly was not for her. She was still waking up at night to hearing Tony's hateful words that he had uttered during the Thanksgiving get-together, and she was not sure if she would ever truly recover from hearing them. She had never heard Tony speak with so much animosity and anger about anyone – not even about his worst of enemies – and she never expected it to ever be about her.

"At this point, it'd be Maya Hansen who would have to watch out for herself, not me."

"Well, if you ask me, I think Miss Hansen has less to worry about than you ever did Miss Potts."

"And why is that? What do you mean?" Pepper asked, but it was then that they arrived at the medical unit of the ship and their conversation stopped. The redhead waited for Maria Hill to remove the security codes from the door, and as soon as they were both inside the small chamber, Pepper made a beeline for the single bed in the middle of the room.

Whitney Stane's condition appeared to be nothing other than a sleeping one, maybe even a comatose state, but when her pod began beeping like crazy at detecting Makluan energy around the dead-to-the-world girl, Pepper scrunched her mouth and nose from side to side in a disapproving manner.

"It's Makluan in origin alright," she said and then began fidgeting with her pod. "Lots of it, too."

Maria observed the redhead scan Whitney's body with different types of lights coming from her pod, and when she finally sighed loudly and shook her head, Maria hoped that the ginger had some news for her.

"I can't help her," she began. "The only one that can make it better is Gene."

"He refuses to speak with us about it. I honestly doubt she'll ever recover her senses."

"How long has she been like this?"

"Since you were found," the agent admitted and the look of shock on Pepper's face was not lost on the woman. "The doctors, they needed to know what had happened to you so that they could help you faster, since you were in a very bad condition when Tony and Gene found you. But she refused to tell us anything of what she had done to you, other than to show off. Tony had the Mandarin help, and all we know is that he was able to get the memories out of her to tell the medical team what to treat you for."

Pepper furrowed her brow and stared at Whitney again. This young woman before her was responsible for the worst time of her life. Even her weeks of captivity by the Maggia had not been as brutal. This woman had been the cause of many of her sorrows, and she partially blamed her for the failure of her relationship with Tony. But at the end of the day, whatever spell the blonde was living under thanks to what Gene had done to her was simply not proportionate with the crime she had committed; at least not in her eyes, and she was highly disappointed that Tony had allowed such a feat to occur.

"So, he said he read her mind, basically?"

"That's what he told us he did, but when we came in to see her, she was on the floor, eyes wide open and not responding to any type of stimuli. We thought she was dead. We sedated her to close her eyes and help her relax. We remove the sedative in one-week intervals, but she's never woken up."

Pepper stared at the girl again and sighed as she held her cold hand in one of her own. This could have been her, if she had not found her way back when she herself had been in a coma. This could have been her father or mother, if Whitney had been able to hurt them too. This could have been anyone dear to her, including the man she hated to love, if he had never woken up from the near-death experience he had encountered after she had saved him from the river just a little over a year ago.

This could have easily been herself, if no one gave a rat's ass about her wellbeing, and she knew for a fact that the only person that could have even cared about Whitney being like this was her father, as distant with her as he had been, and he was in a coma, too.

"So, now what?" Maria asked when she saw Pepper let go of Whitney's hand, walk away from the blonde and head toward the door. "Are you giving up?"

Pepper shook her head.

"I'm going to talk to Gene."

"To tell you how to undo it?" Maria asked as she closed the doors again and followed Pepper out to the hall.

"No," the redhead said and stopped mere feet away from the door. "To demand that he undoes it himself."

"That hasn't worked well so far. He refuses to cure her. He says she deserves that and more. He didn't even listen to General Fury when he asked him what she had done to deserve this much punishment. What makes you think he'll listen to you?"

"The fact that he owes me a favor."

"A favor big enough for him to have to remove whatever incantation he's placed on Miss Stane?"

"I would think so, yes," Pepper said and then took out her pod again. "I'll see what I can do, but I'm hoping we can keep this under the table. I don't want anyone to know I was here or what I'm doing for her."

"Not even Tony Stark?"

"_Especially _NOT Tony Stark."

Maria furrowed her brow but nodded in agreement. S.H.I.E.L.D. was aware of the issue between the two teens, but they had also expected it to die down by now. It appeared to her, however, that the complications were just becoming even more intricate, which only meant there would be more work for the agency. If their intel was accurate as they thought it was, sooner or later, Pepper and Tony would need all the help they could get at the drop of a hat.

"Very well, Miss Potts. When will we hear from you again?"

"Soon, I hope," Pepper responded, looked over to her right, in the general direction of the weapons storage area of the ship, and then gave the agent a lopsided smile. "Any chance I can borrow a Quinjet and a jetpack?"

Maria Hill simply nodded and smiled.

xxxXXXxxx

He should have seen it coming. He really should have. The action had been way overdue. He had expected it to happen at some point, so seeing it come to life should have not left him as shaken as he felt right now; or at least not as hurt. But expectation and realization were two different things, and reality was crueler than any of the worst expectations he had ever set for himself and her.

The only thing he had going for him right now was the fact that he was alone to deal with the pain. Maya was not home and would not be home for the next week, as she had stomped her way out of the apartment a few days ago to spend the holidays with her parents when Tony had declined to go with her. Hell, he had even declined the invitation from his own father to be at SI for Christmas Eve! He really expected Maya not to come back after their latest fight, but he knew that would just be too good to be true.

Good things did not happen to him, anyway.

It had all started simple enough, easy enough, like any other Christmas Day. He had been sitting on his couch, looking for something to watch on television – anything, really – that would keep him from remembering what he and Pepper had been doing around this time last year. Anything that would block his mind from seeing the memories of Pepper sitting next to him, crying in happiness due to his secret gifts to her and then of her walking into his room to kiss him.

_The inventor had been sitting in front of his small workstation he had in his room, and when he saw her come inside with a determined look on her face, he stood up and faced her. _

"_Hey, are you done already? How is your dad? Was the signal goo–"_

_Her lips on his interrupted the question he instantly forgot on contact._

_He closed his eyes and returned the lip lock with equal devotion and his hands landed on her waist. She stood on her tiptoes to get a better grip on him. When he felt her struggle to keep her balance, he picked her up from the floor by his grip on her waist and deepened the kiss, going as far as carefully biting her lower lip._

_He could not stop the throaty moan that escaped him seconds before she pulled back to catch her breath, and he refused to let her feet return to the floor. His eyes searched hers, silently asking what this was all about, but she just continued to pant and stare back at him. She licked her lips and swallowed hard. This was not the first time they had done this and, any time they had, it had been a result of some heightened emotion caused by a unique situation; a unique situation they could later blame for their moment of weakness. But this time, it felt different. _

"_It's a thank you," she said. "For the most thoughtful things anyone has ever done for me."_

"_Any time, Pepper. You're my girl, right?"_

Had it really been an entire year since that moment? Did life really move that fast?

_Or not fast enough?_

He again stared at the object – _objects_ – of his current affliction on the coffee table before him; the reasons why he felt like crumbling again, but only if it was guaranteed to him that, if he fell to pieces right now, he would be able to become whole again as a new person. A person that would no longer care about the redhead and anything that related to her.

Ha! What a fool!

The assistant manager of the complex delivering the package to his door had been his first surprise. Apparently, the man had drawn the short stick and had been forced to work during the holiday, and if Tony believed in a higher power, he would have sworn that the assistant manager had been here today only to sign for the delivery guy that had dropped off the Christmas gift he had opened moments ago. A Christmas gift he had not expected; a Christmas gift from _her_.

He knew she was mad at him for lying to her; for playing god with her memories and life, but he had not been aware that she was THIS mad. He was not aware that she could be THIS cruel; or at least not to him.

He had opened the box with curiosity. Inside, he had found all kinds of wrapping, covering and protecting the several items inside, and when he had taken the first item out and he had immediately recognized it, he knew what else was inside the decorated box.

"_What kind of friend would I be if I didn't try to make it easier on you, huh?" the inventor asked._

"_The kind who sends me a Sudoku puzzle book with no instructions."_

"_What?"_

"_I haven't used it. I don't get it."_

"_What don't you get?"_

"_What I am supposed to do with it."_

"_Oh! I, just… I thought… you-you used to love doing those puzzles before you, well, you know when."_

Half of the puzzles in the book had been completed, and the instructions to the game were written inside one of the covers in her neat penmanship. The very first pages of puzzles showed failed attempts at finding the answers along with doodles of anger that showed her frustration at not understanding the procedure right away. Past the first ten pages or so, there were completed puzzles with smiling faces drawn on the corners, and towards the last completed puzzles – done in pen, nonetheless, when at first they had been done in pencil – were no more doodles of anger, but encouraging words to herself for a job well done.

That had been strike one.

The second item inside the box had been small, almost lost in between the paper inside, but his hand had found it with no problem. He had stared at it for a second, and his eyes had filled with angry tears.

_Tony's smile was almost instantaneous. He returned to the hall to rest his arms on the kitchen bar counter and watched her dance. From the smell, he could tell she was making pancakes, which was not uncommon for her since she had been taking cooking lessons in her rare spare time, and he could always tell when a new dish had been learned because she would cook it all week. His eyes traveled up and down her hips as they swayed to whatever song she was listening to with the MP3 player he had given her while at the hospital. Since then, Tony had come up with a better version of that early prototype of music player, but she had insisted that she was happy with the one she already had._

_**"It's like a souvenir,"**__ she had told him. __**"You don't replace souvenirs."**_

Apparently, you did not_ replace_ souvenirs, but you _did_ give them back.

That had been strike two.

The third item had been rather large and he had not understood how he had missed it before. It was clean, free of scratches and fully charged, and while its purpose was to bring fun to the user, it only brought a scowl to his face.

"_Thank you for the distractions you sent, by the way. You went a little bit overboard but I had fun with them. When do you need them back?"_

_Tony was taken aback. "Need them back? They're yours to keep, Pep –uh, Patricia," her real name sounded so foreign to him._

"_What? You're serious?"_

_Tony shrugged. "Why wouldn't I be?"_

"_Well, it's just, uhm," she rested her right forearm on the back of the bench to help support her weight. "I mean, I get the Sudoku book, but who gives a video game console and a fancy MP3 player as gifts for just being in the hospital?"_

That had been strike three, which normally would mean that was just about enough for anyone to take, but it appeared that the ginger had really wanted her message to hit home.

The fourth item that had been in the box smelled like it had been recently washed, and even if he regretted having it back, he would have at least wanted it back smelling like her and not like dryer sheets.

_He lifted his arms to surround her shoulders and pulled her to rest her face on his shoulder, and she did the same by surrounding his waist with her arms. He continued to whisper apologies to her in her ear. She gave him a weak smile and pointed towards the bathroom door with a tip of her head and he quickly understood she needed some privacy to clean up. He nodded twice and took a few steps away from her and looked down at the floor._

"_You… you can keep the shirt," he mumbled. "If you'd like."_

"_Don't want my scent on your clothes?" she joked and she pulled said t-shirt down as much as she could as she began walking toward the bathroom door._

"_It's not that," he said with a shake of the head and finally looked up at her retreating form. "It's just… It looks good on you."_

Strike four had been a painful one, but not as painful as the last strike.

_"Hey, Tony?" the redhead began, her eyes glued to the sunset they were both watching from their balcony. Tomorrow, the redhead was due to go to ESU for the first time for her orientation, and her good friend and roommate had agreed to go with her. "I've always wondered, when Ghost took me, how… how did you find me so fast?"_

_ Tony looked away from the horizon, leaned over to stare at her neckline, and then his fingers lifted the pendant she was currently wearing around her neck. She looked at it and then at the inventor with a furrowed brow, and tilted her head to the side._

_ "I put a GPS tracker inside," he said and brushed the item in his hands with his thumb before he looked up at her again. "I know it's a complete invasion of privacy, but I couldn't help myself. Not after what happened to you with Whitney."_

_ The redhead scoffed and looked down at the pendant again as he finally let it go and pulled himself away from her to rest his back against the chair again. She returned her eyes to the falling sun and said nothing for an instant, but she then held his right hand in hers and smiled. _

"_Well," she sighed. "It __**is**__ an invasion of privacy, but I'm glad you did it. Otherwise, I'd be dead by now."_

_ "I'll take it out if you want me to."_

_ "No, it's alright," she shook her head. "Keep it there. That way, if anything happens that has us drift apart, as long as I have it with me, you'll know that you can come looking for me, if you need me. You'll know where to find me, if the time comes, and that I'll be there for you. You… you're the best friend I've could've ever asked for, Tony. I'm glad we met."_

_ "I'm glad we met, too, Pep," he said and squeezed her hand. "And I sincerely hope that we never have to drift apart."_

Tony groaned and angrily threw the items back inside the box. He then grabbed the box, took it to the spare room in his home, and threw the unsealed box inside the closet, in the corner of the highest shelf, where it would be out of sight and thus, hopefully, out of mind.

After slamming both the closet and room doors shut, he walked over to his bedroom and opened his boxer drawer. He took out the pair of underwear that belonged to Pepper and closed the drawer again. He then began walking all around the room, finding anything and everything that had once been given to him by her throughout their times together: clothes, shoes, souvenirs, music CDs, key chains, the ticket stub for the Reed Richards conference she had gotten him to cheer him up when Ghost had taken his specs and identity, and pictures of them together, including the one of her he always carried in his wallet. The picture he had restored for her.

All of it, any of it, anything that connected him to her.

He placed everything inside a box that he did not bother to order, secure, or wrap and barely had the decency to tape close. He then walked downstairs to find the assistant manager, paid him a load of cash, gave him Pepper's dorm room address and sent him off to inflict upon her the same pain she had just inflicted upon him.

Pepper Potts cried herself to sleep that night.


	6. Chapter 5

**A/N: **Ooohh! We're halfway there! Oh-OH! Living on a prayer!

Thanks for sticking around. It'll be over soon.

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><p><strong>Chapter 5: January<strong>

Pepper had just returned from her most recent trip to China a few hours ago, but she had been all but dragged out of her dorm room by a bouncing brunette to go have lunch together despite how tired she felt due to jetlag. It had been a couple of months since she had gone out with Maya, and even if seeing her reminded her of the cruel Christmas gift she had received from the inventor – although she should have seen it coming after doing the same herself – she could not let her pain show.

Not even Scott knew about her actions or Tony's Thanksgiving words.

"Pepper, are you even listening to me?"

The ginger was snapped back to reality and gave Maya a contrite smile.

"Sorry, girl," she rubbed the back of her neck. "I'm dozing off on you. I don't mean to, I'm just so tired. What were you saying, again?"

Maya rolled her eyes and slurped on her drink. "I was just inviting you to come over to the apartment and make me some pancakes. How about tomorrow? You can even stay there tonight. Tony's out of the country for now."

"He is?" Pepper inquired and frowned.

"Yeah, he's in South Africa, closing a contract for one of his inventions, the, uhm, _Earth Movers_, I think? Those are the digging lasers, right?" Maya said and Pepper nodded. "Anyway, yeah, he's gone all week and I'm bored out of my wits by myself. So, what do you say?"

"I," Pepper gulped. "I don't know. What if he comes back while I'm there? I don't want to cause an argument between you two."

"I don't think he will, and if he does: who cares? You're my guest and my friend, and if he has trouble with me bringing over friends to the apartment, then he can shove it and leave. Either way, I don't think he'll be angry at seeing you there. You guys used to be very close, anyway, right? I'm sure he misses you even if he never talks about you."

"Yeah, I guess," Pepper said and looked away from the brunette to stare at something only she could see; a distant and agonizing memory.

"_Yes! It IS! It SO is! So, why? WHY is she here in the first place? She's just ruining my time with everyone else! Pissing the fuck out of me every second she's here. She's acting like nothing ever happened, like if we didn't tell each other off! And she's all smiles and giggles with everyone, as if she belongs here. She. DOESN'T. Belong. Here. She should leave right now! Why did she even come?"_

"But, it's different now," Pepper continued. "I don't want him to feel like I'm invading his space. Like I'm trying to purposefully annoy him by being where I don't belong."

"You're not. You won't. You…" Maya sighed. "You guys must've had a big issue for it to end up like this. Tony, he… he won't tell me what it was, and you probably won't tell me either but… I just… I hope it wasn't because of me."

"It wasn't," Pepper assured her with a smile. "It was… overdue, I guess. It wasn't anything that just happened out of the blue. It was… it was something that we had been avoiding for some time."

"Oh," Maya said, her curiosity peeked. "You… you mean it was something other than him making you forget about the fact that you two used to date?"

The redhead's mouth slacked and her eyes opened as wide as they could be. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, but only low squeals came out until she finally shook her head and groaned.

"You-you… he told _you_ about that?!"

Maya flinched but gave her a nod. "Yeah. He, uhm, he told me a long time ago. Like, almost a year ago. He made me promise not to tell you anything."

"He-he did? A year? A whole year?"

Maya nodded again.

_That… that… asshole!_

Pepper cleared her throat and blinked several times, trying her best to keep the angry words from coming out, but when she felt them land on the tip of her tongue, she abruptly stood up from the chair.

"I'm… I need to go to the bathroom," Pepper said and did not wait for an acknowledgement from Maya before she sped her way from the table and rushed inside the ladies room.

There were only two other people inside the place, but they quickly dispersed when Pepper slammed the door behind her. She was hyperventilating so hard, she was starting to see dark spots in her eyes. She walked to the closest stall and locked herself inside, only to nearly collapse on the floor; the only thing keeping her up being the fact that she knew the place was probably crawling with disease.

_He… he told her! He told HER before he told ME!_

Why the hell was she even surprised?

Gene knew, Rhodey knew, Howard knew, Jarvis knew, Dr. Ross and Nurse Owen knew, her father knew, her mother knew, Nick Fury and Maria Hill knew and, apparently, Maya knew too.

Why did nobody try to stop him? Why had he been allowed to do this to her?

_Damn him! Damn him and everything he stands for!_

Almost a year. That killed her. She had found out by accident, in the middle of a mission, last _June_. Maya, who had nothing to do with the situation, who had not even been there when Tony had made the decision with Gene, knew about it months before she even found out herself, and she did so from Tony Stark nonetheless. How could she even believe that he had ever cared for her, loved her, seen her as a friend? How could she believe his words? How did he ever expect her to stay with him after everything he had done to her?

For her, as he had claimed.

_"Shut up!" she said and turned her body so that she completely faced him now. "I don't want to hear the excuses I've already heard from Gene."_

_ "You-you've spoken to Gene?"_

_ "Yes. And he told me everything, and even though he was part of it, YOU'RE the one who asked him to do it. You're the one who wanted me to forget about us!"_

_ "To protect you, Pepper!" he faced her too. "To keep you safe! To not have you involved in more of the same danger I've already put you through! It's not so hard to understand! I did it for you, Pep! I did it because I love you, so damn much!"_

Love?

_He doesn't know anything about love!_

Was that how a man showed love to a woman? By making her believe he cared for her? By feeding her lies and memories that never actually occurred? By sleeping with her when he is dating someone else? By telling everyone except her about what he did to her to change her life? Was that Tony's definition of love?

_"EXACTLY! But still, she has no business here. It's like, what is she, stupid or something? I don't even know why I slept with her. Worst mistake **ever**. I wish I could take it back but… but I can't! It's done and I have to live with it! What else am I supposed to do to make her understand? I want her out of my life, gone! Disappeared! FOREVER! If I could prevent us from ever meeting, I would. I wish I'd never met her, really. I wish I'd never been at that fucking roof that day! What else am I supposed to do for her to get the hint, huh? Tell her off again? Beat her up?"_

And to think she had wanted to call a truce. To think she had considered forgiving him. To think she had spoken so highly of him on national TV!

_I'm so stupid! So, so, so STUPID!_

If she ever saw him again, if she were to _ever _be in a room alone with him again, she would… she would just…

_What? Hug him? Kiss him? Sleep with him again? Ugh!_

"Pepper, are you alright?"

She unclenched her eyes she had not been aware she had closed and rubbed her temples with her fingertips as she stared down at the floor. She knew Maya had no fault in this. She knew the girl was just in love with the jerk she also happened to love dearly. It was not Maya's decision for the ginger to forget her past. It was not Maya's doing that Pepper and Tony both hated and loved each other's guts.

_Calm down, Pepper_, she told herself. _Just chill out!_

She took a deep breath to control her anger and to not lash out at the woman that had just happened to be placed in her screwed up life. She was not ready to open the door just yet, though. She was not ready to face the world again so soon, so she decided to simply rest her back against the stall door and sigh.

"Yes, Maya," she began. "I'm just… I think the food got me sick. I'm really dizzy and nauseous."

"Oh," the girl said and stood by the door of the stall Pepper had locked herself in. "Are you sure it's the food? Are you sure it's not something else?"

Pepper frowned.

What was Maya trying to imply? That she knew that finding out that Maya had known about her life before herself, had gotten the best of her, as true as this was? That she could see from miles away what her revelation would do to the ginger and had gone forward with stating it anyway? Was the seemingly innocent Maya Hansen planning this all along just to get back at the woman that had once shared her current man?

_Dammit, Potts! What's wrong with you? You're starting to sound as paranoid as Tony Stark!_

"I…" Pepper began with barely controlled anger she did not know the origin of: hating Tony, hating that she loved Tony, her now current suspicions that there was more to the brunette than she had thought, or her paranoia that was telling her that something was off with Maya's actions and words without any logical reason to think so. "I'm sure it was the salad. Why do you ask?"

"Well," Maya said and bit her lip. "Maybe it's not the salad, but a bun?"

"A bun?"

"Yeah, you know," Maya shrugged. "A bun… in the oven?

Pepper practically snorted and shook her head.

_Yup, paranoid. That's what I am._

"No, Maya," Pepper said. "It's not a bun. I just… I spent hours in a plane to get to China. Spent days arguing with a friend, then flew back here, slept for two hours and now I'm here having lunch with another friend even though all I want to do is to sleep. It's just catching up with me. That's all."

"Oh," Maya's shoulders sagged. "I'm sorry, Pepper. I… I just wanted to go out and…" she sighed.

She had honestly thought Pepper knew about her knowing about what Tony had done to her. She had sincerely thought she was not relaying any new information to the redhead. She had not meant to upset her; she had just wanted to spend time with the girl, and perhaps find out what had happened between the inventor and the ginger to see if she could somehow fix the issue for them. Maya knew Tony's constant anger was related to not having the redhead in his life, even if just as a friend as he had before. She had just wanted to do something good for them that could potentially turn out to be good for herself as well. She had to do something about Tony's attitude towards her and soon; she was running out of time.

"I'm sorry," the brunette finally said. "Let me take you back home."

"Would you mind? We can always go out later. I promise. I'll make time."

"That sounds good. I can take a rain check," the girl said and then took a step back when Pepper finally opened the door. The ginger gave the woman a thankful smile and a nod, and then followed her out of the ladies room without another word.

After paying for their food and jumping in Maya's car, Pepper lost herself in her thoughts again. She had not altogether lied to the brunette; she really had spent hours in a plane and had spent days arguing with Gene about Whitney's condition, trying to convince him to undo whatever he had done, and she really wanted to fall on her bed and sleep.

She really did feel sick, dizzy and nauseous, and she was certain it had been a combination of the salad, the jetlag and the shock of finding out Maya had known about her and Tony's dating time all along. But, when her _Stark Pod_ vibrated in her pocket to signify she had an alert, everything else that she had just thought about stopped having any meaning to her.

The alert she was currently staring at on the screen had come from her period tracker application in her pod, and it was telling her that her period timing was off.

**Way** off.

_Oh, shit!_

Suddenly, the bun was not such a ridiculous idea after all.

xxxXXXxxx

It was amazing how someone's life could so easily change in the blink of an eye. One day you were alive, the next… you were not. One day you were at the top of the world, and the next you were scrapping by. One day you were worrying about what clothes to wear for a party, and the next your body was being dragged out from the wreckage of a car crash you did not survive. Pepper knew that fact to be absolutely true, but for her so far the changes in her life had been different than the one she feared she would find out about, in about five minutes.

She had bought ten different brands of tests, and she had lined them all up on the vanity of her bathroom while she waited for the results. Her front door and bathroom door were both locked, even though no one other than her and the resident assistant on duty had a key to it. She had even called Scott and had told him to stay away from her room – not in those exact same words, of course. And she had also e-mailed her professor to tell her she would not be going to class today.

As she randomly stared at the countdown on her pod, she began thinking about what a positive result could mean in her life. This was the last thing she needed at the moment, she knew, but she had no one but herself to blame for it, if the plus sign or blue double-stripes appeared. She had not even told her father about her engagement with Scott yet, even though she had sworn to the jock that she had. In fact, now that she thought about it…

_"Tony is very happy with Maya Hansen, and I'm engaged to Scott Summers. I met Scott my first day in college, and Tony met Maya before I even came out of the coma you all know I went through, more than a year ago. They've been together ever since. How can anyone even consider that Tony and I had something, if we've been devoted to someone else all this time? The connection is there, but the paths are different. Why is that so difficult for everyone to understand?"_

"Oh, _FUCK_!"

The redhead groaned, threw her head back, covered her face with her hands and hoped that there were no _Good Morning America_ relays in the Middle East. What had she been thinking when she said that? How had she not thought about the OTHER consequences of saying that on TV? What if her father saw it? What if… What if…

"_It's about the fact that I just donated a billion dollars to the cause of finding the cure to the number-one killer of women in this country, and all anyone has to say about it is: __**Hey, did you ever fuck Tony Stark?**_ _Well, sorry to break it to you: I've never__** fucked**__ Tony Stark. But I've fucked Scott Summers, __**a lot**__, so unless you want to hear the specifics about that…" " _

"UGH! Me and my BIG, FAT, STUPID mouth!"

She banged her head against the wall, took in a deep breath, stared at the countdown and groaned again.

"WHAT? Only _thirty _seconds have gone by? What the hell?!"

She banged her head again and then began pacing the small room, cracking her knuckles and making popping sounds with her mouth. What would she have to do if it was positive? What would she have to give up on? How would her life change, _again_?

Changing her name, joining the Peace Corps and transferring to Berkeley would all not be options anymore, for starters. She would have to quit coming to school and would have to start taking only online classes again, and her five-year combined bachelor and master's degrees would probably take longer than the time that was allocated for them to be completed. She would have to leave campus and find her own place, perhaps even live with Scott. Buying that house did not seem like such a bad idea to her now, and she was certain that the jock would suggest speeding up the nonexistent wedding arrangements that she had been putting off for months now. She would have to ask Roberta to stop trying to get her out of co-ownership of Stark Solutions so that she would have enough funds to… to…

She sighed, stared at the clock and sighed again.

_Four._

Four more minutes of wait time had to pass by. Four more minutes until she knew the truth. Four more minutes until her life changed forever. Four more minutes until she would probably have to call Scott to tell him that he was going to become a father.

How long had they been engaged, anyway?

They had started dating in September, and then he had asked her to consider getting serious in February. He had then brought up the topic again in April before Tony's birthday, and she had said yes to him before said month had ended.

_Wow! We've been dating for over a year?_

Time sure flew by… except, of course, when one was waiting on ten damn pregnancy tests to show you results!

_This can't be_, she thought and sat on the edge of the bathtub. _Am I going to be a mom? I'm just nineteen! How could I be a mom?_

Then again, her own birth mother had had her when she was even younger than her… and she had then killed herself shortly after having her.

Was post-partum depression hereditary? She surely hoped not!

_What will my dad say? Will he be mad at me? Would he stop talking to me? Disown me? What about Scott? Will he be mad? Thrilled? Will he leave me and the… the…_

Her eyes landed on the countdown. Three more minutes to go.

She stared at the floor and rested her elbows on her knees. So many things to consider. So many things that would change. What had she been thinking, sleeping with Scott? Yes, she had been careful and had been using protection, but she knew that nothing was ever one-hundred percent preventable in these situations. What would happen if she was pregnant with Scott's baby? How could she give birth to the child of a man that she was starting to fall out of love with?

_What would Tony do?_

What did it even matter if Tony found out? What did it matter to her what the inventor would do? He would probably make a crude joke about her having a baby born with tiny sunglasses. Maybe even go as far as making teeny, tiny eyewear for the baby to wear, if only just to ridicule her and Scott. He would most certainly not care if she was pregnant with another man's baby, right? He would most certainly not care if she had some other man's child? Right?

_Another man?_ She frowned at her thoughts. _Scott is not another man. Tony and I aren't together. Scott is the only man._

She still had two more minutes to go and her hands had begun to sweat.

She closed her eyes, covered her face with her hands again, sighed, and the only sound in the room was of her shallow breathing and the tapping of her right foot on the tiled floor.

How did women around the world do this? How could they deal with the pressure of bringing life into this world? How did the burden of having to care for another person, a vulnerable person, not make them insane with fear? How could she even hope to get through this at all? What if Scott wanted nothing to do with his own child? What if he bailed out on her?

She knew that she most certainly – at least financially speaking – did not need a man by her side to raise a child. In fact, if Scott decided to abandon ship, it would not be the worst thing to have ever happened to her. She definitely had the monetary means to bring up a baby, and she knew that she could always count on her friends for moral support – sans Tony, of course. Her father would eventually forgive her, she hoped, and her mother would probably have no say in the matter seeing that she had no experience bringing life into the world and that she had spent very little time with her own adopted daughter to make judgment calls.

What would kill her, however, would be the fact that if Scott decided to leave her, her child would be fatherless, and after finding out that she herself had been rejected by her own birth father, it was important for her that her own child have that fatherly figure at home. There would be plenty of men around: Rhodey, David, Jarvis, Howard, and maybe even Gene Khan, but if none of them was the father of her baby, what good would that do for her child?

From all the ways she had pictured this moment ever happening; the moment she waited for a pregnancy test to complete, this was not what she had had in mind. Suddenly, and with a lot of anger, she began to cry.

"_I thought about you all day, like I always do. Especially when we robbed this jewelry store and I saw a ring I'd like to see on you one day."_

_She did not make a sound or move an inch, so he continued speaking. _

"_And also when we were driving back and I saw this neighborhood I know you'd like to live in with me. It had a park and a private entrance, and there were kids riding their bikes and playing hoops in their backyards. You'd always said to me that you hated growing up in an apartment, and that you wanted your kids to know what it's like to have an actual home. I imagined you and me there, or in a place like that someday, being happy, the two of us."_

The memory was painful, _extremely_ painful, but not as painful as hearing the alarm of the countdown going off.

Time was up.

She did not even rush to the tests at all; she was still busy drying her tears and waiting for her chest to stop hurting. It was always like this for her, when she thought about the good times between them. It was also so ironic for her to realize how a happy memory could turn sour overnight; just like someone's life could change in the same amount of time it took to sigh.

She slowly stood up from the edge of the bathtub and walked over to the vanity. She blinked away the remaining tears and focused on the tests as she read each and everyone one of them, all showing the same result: her worry had been for naught. But the revelations she had had in the last five minutes, had left her wondering if the path she had chosen to take with her life was the right one.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** An interesting tidbit about these stories is that they are called _The First_, _The Second_ and etc., etc., to match the college years for Pepper's 5-year degree, even though we don't get to see much of her class time.


	7. Chapter 6

**A/N: **The FINAL COUNTDOWN!

**Would it make it easier on you if I said something VERY good happens at the end of this story?**

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><p><strong>Chapter 6: February<strong>

She was seriously considering getting themselves drunk and high tonight, and every other night, until she got what she wanted – what she so urgently needed. That had worked for a lot of girls in high school, right? And in college, too, correct? Was not that what happened to partying, underage girls: alcohol equated to unplanned pregnancies? Why was that not happening to her? Did she really need to get Tony drunk for this?

_He won't drink_, she thought bitterly. _He won't even try the Margaritas I bought!_

The brunette sighed in desperation as she threw to the trashcan yet another negative pregnancy test. This was the third one she had taken since she and Tony had begun sleeping together, and it was the third one that did not give her the wanted results. She could not understand why she was not with child by now; given the extreme measures she was taking. She had been replacing her birth control pills with vitamins. She had poked holes in Tony's condoms. She had even convinced the inventor to have sex without any protection at least twice so far. How was this not happening already?

She had run some tests on herself to detect signs of infertility, but they had all come back as normal, which meant that perhaps the problem was not her but the inventor himself. She could not run any tests on him or even mention the fact that she was trying to get pregnant from him; that would only send him over the edge and he would finally kick her out – or at least throw her belongings from the balcony of the apartment and onto the ground.

It was already difficult enough carrying a normal dialog with him without running the risk of him getting angry and going off at her for the stupidest of things. Talking about kids, particularly having _his_ kids, would just piss him off even more.

There was no topic of conversation that did not incite a negative response from him, no opportunity for her to make an attempt at a civil discussion without him storming out on her; just as he had done so hours ago when she had asked him if they could switch their brand of toothpaste and he had responded by slamming the front door on his way out to the grocery store to buy another brand.

Oh, the things she had to put up with!

She washed her hands and exited the bathroom when her cell phone went off. She knew who was calling and why, and she was annoyed by the simple thought of having to relay bad news. That was all she had been able to give him so far: bad news, terrible news and horrible news, all back-to-back.

_Oh, well_, she thought with contempt as she flipped open her phone and answered the call. _Better get this done._

"This is Hansen," she said to the speaker and sat on the edge of the bed. She patiently waited for the other person to ask the dreaded question she knew was coming, and once it was out in the open, she clenched her eyes closed and sighed before she responded.

"No, not yet."

She flinched and pulled the phone away from her ear when the caller began yelling like there was no tomorrow. She exhaled and rolled her eyes as she randomly replaced the phone back on her ear a few times to make sure that her turn to speak had not been missed. After about three minutes of incessant yelling, her turn to speak again finally arrived and she cleared her throat.

"I'm trying! He's getting more and more difficult to deal with. I'm lucky he hasn't changed the locks when I'm not home."

Her comment was not well received by the caller, and she again had to pull away the phone from her ear. No one really felt her pain or understood how difficult her task truly was. How could they even assume that her end of the deal was easy to accomplish? How could they possibly believe that it was something that could be done overnight? Tony Stark was not any regular man, and he was not a stupid man at all.

"No. No, he doesn't. Yes. Yes, I'm sure."

She stood up from the bed and began pacing the room.

"No, I can't," she sighed. "Because he's not even sleeping in the same bed as I am! That's why!"

She again waited for her turn to speak and exited the bedroom. She walked over to the kitchen, towards the fridge and took out from it Tony's water bottle he took with him when he went to the gym downstairs at night. She eyed the item for a moment, and after closing the fridge door, she took the bottle with her back into the bedroom.

"The floor," the brunette said as she arrived to the restroom again, placed the bottle on the vanity and, from under the sink, she took out the bag that held her makeup. "_Her_ room. No, it's locked. I know. I know! Yes, I know I'm on a timeline! I just…"

She held the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she removed the cap from Tony's bottle. She then rummaged inside her makeup bag and took out from it a small bottle she quickly unscrewed, and then dumped half of its clear liquid contents inside the blue-eyed boy's bottle. She closed the small bottle and put it back in her cosmetics bag and then screwed the cap on the water bottle again.

"I just told you why!" she said and began shaking the water bottle. "I'm trying!" she shook it some more. "Yeah. No. I... I can't yet. Because I can't!"

She returned to the kitchen, water bottle in hand and placed it back where she had found it in the fridge. She then walked over to the living room and sat on the couch as she listened to the caller go on and on about how she was not keeping her word.

"Well, can't he wait? A few more months. What do you mean 'no'?"

The caller again yelled at her, listing the reasons why her request was absurd. This was how all their calls went, anyway, and she knew that the only thing she had to do now was wait until the screaming was done. At that point, she would repeat her last words, say that she needed more time, and the caller would have no choice but to agree. It was all they could do for now.

Five minutes later, when the call finally ended, her expectations had become true. She had more time. Not much, but still more time. And when Tony returned to the apartment, threw the plastic bag containing a different kind of toothpaste on the counter in the kitchen, opened the fridge and took out his water bottle, and then left the apartment again, bottle in hand, and with the destination of the building's gym room, Maya knew tonight could be her lucky night.

xxxXXXxxx

Two weeks. That was how long she had been awake after being asleep for over a year, not even knowing that she had been gone at all. She could not remember where she had been during that time, what she had felt— if she had felt anything at all, or even if she had been aware of her surroundings in any capacity, but now she knew that something had been done to her, and when she had been told why she had been the subject of Makluan-induced punishment, she had been shocked to her core.

_"I did __**what **__to Pepper?"_

She had not believed her ears, but the pictures and the video of herself talking, smiling like a maniac as she verbally and slowly recapped her torturing techniques to a broken-looking Tony Stark, had been enough for her to believe General Fury's words.

_I almost took her life. I almost killed another human being!_

How had she allowed herself to do that in the first place? This was not her! She was not a murderer! She was spoiled and misunderstood, sure, but killing was not in her blood!

The mask. It had to have all been due to the mask.

Her memories had been slowly returning to her, and with them her life had been slowly pieced back together. She knew that her father had gone apeshit after being fired from Stark International and was now in a coma. She also knew that Howard Stark was back and that she had almost succeeded in killing him. She knew that she had taken the identity of Madame Masque and that Tony Stark was Iron Man, and that she had kidnapped and had attempted to kill Patricia 'Pepper' Potts; the same Patricia that was now sitting in the same room as her, staring her directly in the eye from her position across the thin table between them.

The room they were in was small; it looked like an interrogation room of some sort, and the walls were made out of glass. She could not see anything other than their own reflections on them, but she was certain that an entire group of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had to have been right outside at the moment, perhaps even aiming several guns at her. Perhaps even ready to blow her brains out at the smallest hint of hostility on her part.

She really could not blame them for it, though, and she had to give props to the ginger for being here with her, all by herself for all practical purposes, with no immediate defense other than her own two hands. The blonde's wrists and ankles were bound by thick, metal shackles, which appeared to have no keyhole on them. They were probably electronic and remotely controlled, just as everything else was in this place; something she had come to learn in the past fourteen days since waking up.

"I don't know where to start," Whitney admitted with a sad sigh and then looked at the floor, unable to meet Pepper's eyes. Pepper tapped her fingers on the table; her eyes glued to the girl before her, as if trying to read her thoughts, and she then sighed in exasperation.

"Then, I guess I'll start," Pepper leaned back in the chair, hands on her lap. "I'm sorry you were kept in a coma for so long. If I'd known about it before now, I would've gotten you out of it much sooner."

The look on the blonde's face was so shocking, it was almost comical.

"Pepper," she began. "You-you… why are you apologizing to _me_? I… I'm the one who did terrible things to you!"

"Yes, you did," the redhead leaned forward and rested her weight on her bent arms on the table. "But that doesn't mean you deserved to be a vegetable for the rest of your life. I'm not saying that you're excused, or that S.H.I.E.L.D. won't have you tried and punished for your actions, but being stuck in limbo is not what I'd want to happen to anyone, not even you."

Whitney stared at her lap and then to her side, thinking deeply about Pepper's words.

"I'm sorry, Pepper, for what I did to you. I know you probably won't believe me, but I'm really sorry."

"I believe you," the redhead said almost immediately, and her honest tone and relaxed face made the blonde's head snap up and her mouth slack in utter incredulity.

"You do?"

"Yeah," Pepper shrugged. "A lot of things have happened since then, Whitney. This, whatever you did… it's… in the past."

The redhead waved her hand dismissively to emphasize her point, and when the light shone on her left hand and caught the attention of the blonde, Whitney chuckled and gave the ginger a gloomy smile.

"Tony asked you to marry him, didn't he?"

Pepper's first reaction was to frown; momentarily confused by the seemingly random comment, until she remembered she was wearing her engagement ring. She stretched her hand before her, stared at the ring for a second, and then she chuckled and shook her head.

"Not at all. I'm engaged, but not to Tony."

The look of double surprise on the girl's face brought a roll of the eyes to the redhead and a shake of the head.

"What? You don't believe me?"

"No… I…" Whitney gulped. "I do… I do but… I just… I can't believe Tony let someone else take you away from him."

Pepper shrugged.

"It wasn't meant to be."

"I don't believe that," Whitney shook her head vehemently. "I don't believe that for a second. What did he do?"

The redhead arched a single brow. "What makes you think he did anything at all?"

"Well, Pepper, if we're going to be honest with ourselves, we both know that you've had a crush on him since he set foot at the Academy. And well, he took a little while to return the sentiment, but I know for a fact that he loves you very much. Or at least I know he did, before I went… MIA."

Pepper shrugged again, leaned back in the chair and looked away.

"Things change, Whitney. The impossible happens. I mean, look at us right now. I don't think that we've ever had a normal conversation, let alone a long one like this, and yet here we are," by the time she finished her sentence, the redhead's eyes had returned to the blonde.

"I know. I, uhm, I know what you mean. But the only reason why I hated you was because Tony likes you so much. He trusts you _so_ much, Pepper. I don't think that he ever bonded with me like that at all, even though I'd known him longer than you have."

Pepper swallowed hard but kept a small smile on her face. "Well, maybe if he saw the real you, the one without Madame Masque, you guys could be friends again."

Whitney chuckled bitterly and looked away, tears forming in her eyes.

"That's really nice of you to say, but I know where I stand. Tony will never forgive me. He will never forget that I almost took your life. I could've taken his suit or his money, maybe even harm him directly, but your safety is not negotiable with him. Even I know that."

"You'd be surprised," Pepper shrugged, trying hard to keep the tears of sadness at bay. "There've been a lot of things I never thought that Tony would ever do or say, but I've been proven wrong several times in the last year or so. I'm not saying he's gonna trust you right away or even ask you to be best pals, but he'll forget it. Eventually. And he won't hate you anymore… one day."

Whitney nodded even though she knew better than to believe that Tony would ever see her as anything other than the most despicable person in the world. She was amazed that, even today, the ginger was not aware of the power she had over the inventor. Whitney did not know where the redhead and the genius stood right now, and she could not image why she and the blue-eyed boy had not worked out, but something she did know was that she would be lucky if Tony even thought about her ever again for the rest of his life.

"What's gonna happen to me now?" Whitney asked as she stared left and right, half expecting S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to show up any moment now since the conversation seemed to be wrapping up. "Am I going to prison? Are they going to kill me?"

"I wish I could tell you," Pepper said. "It really depends on whatever General Fury and his committee decides, but death is not something I'll let them do to you, if I have a say. I don't believe that kind of punishment is fair for what you did to me, and I'm sure Tony wouldn't have wanted that for you either, no matter how mad he got about what happened."

"What about Gene Khan? Would he advocate for my death?"

Pepper shook her head. "He won't even get involved."

"Are you sure? He's the one who put me away, right? He's your friend, too, and I'm sure he wasn't happy when he found out what I did. He was probably as mad as Tony was… _is_!"

"He wasn't happy. I'm not going to deny that. He's still pretty pissed off, in fact, but he won't come for you."

"How do you know that? Doesn't he have powers? Can't he appear out of nowhere?"

"He won't, Whitney. He made me a promise."

"A promise?" Whitney asked and then her eyes widened in shock. "Oh, my God! Are you engaged to Gene Khan?"

Pepper laughed aloud and shook her head. "No! It's not Gene, either."

"Happy?"

"No."

"Rhodey?"

"NO!"

"Then, who?"

"You don't know the guy I'm engaged to. I met him in college."

"Oh," Whitney said and then the room became silent again. Pepper took a deep breath and finally stood up; prompting the blonde to look at the redhead's every move.

"Look, Whitney," Pepper began. "I came here as soon as I found out what Gene had done to you. And like I said before, I wish I'd known about it sooner. I spent a few weeks trying to convince him to undo it, and it was not easy, but I got it done. I did it because it's the right thing to do, but also because I wanted to close this chapter of my life and forget it ever occurred."

Pepper paused for a moment and looked away before she swallowed hard and continued.

"What I'm trying to say is that my job here is done and we probably won't speak ever again. But I wanted to tell you in person that there are no hard feelings between us, at least not from my end. Whatever is done is done, and I'm tired of dwelling on it. I'm not asking for us to be friends, but I do hope that whatever grudge that you had against me is gone now. I know I wasn't the nicest person to you either when we went to school, but I was only jealous that Tony considered you his friend. Whatever fears you had about him and me were the same ones I had of you two. I guess," she chuckled. "I guess we were both stupid enough to let a misunderstanding get the best of us."

"Pepper," Whitney began. "I know exactly what you mean, and I'm grateful for you getting me out of the coma I was in. I know I don't deserve it, and that I'll probably spend my life in prison, and I'm not trying to justify myself, but I just want you to know that I'd have never done that to you if I hadn't been so easily consumed by the mask. I did hate you a lot for a while there, but what I did… it wasn't justified."

Pepper shrugged and gave a lopsided smile to the blonde.

"How about we agree never to talk about it ever again, huh?"

Whitney's voice caught in her throat. All she could do was nod.

Pepper then returned the gesture and waved goodbye toward her and headed to the door. As soon as the redhead's hand touched the pad on the wall to open the door, however, Whitney's cracking voice asking her to stop made her do just that, and even though the door had already opened, Pepper waited for the girl to say whatever she wanted to say to her.

"Pepper," Whitney sniffled. "Could you ever forgive me?"

Pepper slowly turned around to face the girl and gave her a final nod before she spoke. "I already did."

Not wanting to wait for anything else and feeling her heart beating in her throat, Pepper gave her back to the blonde and exited the room. The door closed behind her as she waved a thank you to the agents on duty. She then sped down the hall and into the awaiting Quinjet that would take her back home.

By the time she reached the flying aircraft, her tears had already streamed down her face at Whitney's words. She knew it had not been the girl's intention to upset her; she was not even aware of everything that had happened between her and Tony, but the fact that the topic had been brought up had been enough to pour salt on a wound that had never completely healed and that she knew never would.

As the noise of the jet doors closing right before takeoff invaded her ears, the only sound that the ginger could hear were of the blonde's words. The ones that had made her feel heartbroken all over again; the same words that she had heard from so many people already – including Tony's own father rather recently – and that always made her want to curl up into a ball and cry.

_"Well, Pepper, if we're going to be honest with ourselves, we both know that you've had a crush on him since he set foot at the Academy. And well, he took a little while to return the sentiment, but I know for a fact that he loves you very much. Or at least I know he did, before I went… MIA."_

Pepper clenched her hands, closed her eyes and sobbed.

xxxXXXxxx

His eyes were narrowed, his knuckles were white and his face flushed in pure anger. It had taken all of his self-control not to follow Pepper out the door just seconds ago; even more self-control than it had taken him to stand here to watch the meeting of the two women. He knew his ginger had tried to pretend she was alright, that her meeting with Whitney had not upset her at all, that her words and references to their past had meant nothing to her, but he knew better than that.

He knew her so much better than that.

He could not follow her, however, despite how much he wanted to. She was not even supposed to know he was here in the first place. Maria Hill had not been happy when she had been told by General Fury that Tony Stark would be called to witness the meeting, and that this information would not be relayed to the redhead. Nonetheless, it had been an order and she had had no choice but to follow it. She was not sure why the General had wanted this to happen, but it was not her place to question the command.

Tony had been outright upset when he had been told that Pepper had been advocating for the blonde with Gene, and had been even madder when he had been informed that she had succeeded in her quest. He knew that Pepper would eventually do this one day when she found out the truth about what had happened to Whitney, but that did not mean he was happy about it. Whitney was supposed to rot in the Makluan hell Gene had sent her to. In Tony's eyes, she deserved every little bit of it, especially now that he could not have Pepper with him.

"Are you sure this is what you want, Stark?" General Fury asked the blue-eyed boy. "I can't have you kill my prisoner before I get a chance to put her on trial. I just got her back."

"I won't kill her," he said even though his already murder-stained hands were getting hot. "But I won't be as nice as Pepper was to her. I don't give a fuck that she's remorseful about what she did to her. She's going to get a piece of my mind."

Fury shrugged. "I see no point to it, honestly. But if you want to waste time and energy with her, be my guest. I don't think this person that came back from wherever she was is the same one that hurt Pepper. That person got away with what she did, and there's nothing you or I, or anyone else can do to get back at her. You're about to go off at an empty shell."

"I don't care," Tony said despite the wisdom in Fury's words. "I won't ever let this go."

"Maybe that's your problem, son," Fury said. "You never know when to let go."

Tony glared at the General but did not reply, and when the door to the room where Whitney was being held in was opened, the inventor made a beeline to it. There was plenty of anger inside of him right now, and he had no problem letting some of it out on the person he held solely responsible for ruining his life. Empty shell or not, Whitney Stane was going to hear from the horse's mouth just exactly what he thought about her.

It was all he could do to literally not blow up.


	8. Chapter 7

**A/N: **Some Pepperony in this chapter. Not much, but good enough, I think.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7: March<strong>

As part of her volunteering efforts and community involvement, the redhead had been invited to be a panelist for the opening events for the National Women's History Month celebration, at a convention center in downtown New York. At first, she had been excited about the prospect of helping out. Yet, after she had seen the roster of the other women that would be in the same panel as her, she honestly had no clue why she was sitting in it right now.

She sat in the middle of the four other invitees, and whether she looked to her left or her right, she felt as the most out of place person in the world at the moment. To her immediate right, sat a young woman by the name of Betty Ross, who happened to be a brilliant cellular biologist and had made incredible contributions regarding the use of gamma rays to aggressively fight advanced stages of cancer. To Pepper's immediate left, sat a woman by the name of Janet Van Dyne, the daughter of a rich and renowned scientist, who spent her days being a philanthropist and often appeared on the cover of high-profile modeling magazines all around the world. To Betty Ross' right, sat none other than Jean Grey, the former student of the Tomorrow Academy that the ginger, Tony and Rhodey had had a chance to meet once, and who was now an active advocate for mutant rights. Finally, and to Janet Van Dyne's left, sat a woman named Major Carol Danvers, a member of the United States Air Force and Security Chief of a restricted military base.

And she, Pepper Potts, was just a nineteen year-old with too much time and money on her hands.

She could not help but sigh.

"You really don't take advantage of your skin tone and hair color, you know?" Janet told the redhead while she used a small mirror to check her makeup before the cameras began rolling the conference. "If I was a natural redhead, I'd be going crazy with all the things that would fit me best and I'd probably have a lot more modeling gigs that I do now."

It took Pepper a few seconds to realize that the model was actually talking to her, and that she was expecting some kind of response. "Uhm, thanks?" she shrugged. "I-I don't do modeling stuff. I can barely walk in high heels."

"You learn that, sweetheart," Janet responded with a wave of her hand and then put away her mirror. "Besides, the pay and exposure is good, and you don't have to actually _walk_ on heels to appear on the cover of magazines."

"I guess so," Pepper said, gulped and exhaled slowly through her mouth to calm her nerves. "But I'm just not the graceful kind."

"I hate high heels, too," Betty whispered to the ginger with a smile, earning her a glare and a roll of her eyes from Janet. "Flats are all I use."

"Well, if I had your face, Betty Dear, I also wouldn't give a _damn_ about my shoes. Seriously, when are you gonna let me give you a makeover? You need to get laid more often, and some sparkle on you would definitely help."

Pepper stared left and right at the two women and frowned.

"You two know each other?"

"We're roommates," Betty said and smirked. "I'm the smart one, she's the pretty one."

"HEY!" Janet said in a high-pitched tone. "I resent that! I may not have brains but I have perky boobs! Which amounts to almost the same, if you ask me."

"Can you please be quiet and act your age?" Carol Danvers said between gritted teeth and glared at Janet. "This is not how we're supposed to behave here. People are looking up at us as role models for other women and I doubt they'll appreciate you acting like a brat."

"Or a slut," Betty said and held back a laugh. "At least not here, Janet. Wait until the party tonight."

"She already acted like a slut, earlier today, with the guy that delivered your breakfast at the hotel room, Betty," Jean Grey quipped and got the attention of all of the other four women at the table.

"WHAT? Dammit, Jean! I've told you to stop reading my mind!"

"I didn't have to," Jean shrugged. "The guy was talking all about it to some reporters outside the hotel."

"Argh!" Janet groaned and threw her hands in the air. "Seriously! There's nobody you can fool around with and trust to stay quiet about it nowadays? He wasn't even that good looking."

"Then why did you sleep with him?" Betty asked.

"He asked for a tip," Janet said with a smirk and shrugged. "And I was bored."

"Pathetic," Carol said with a face of disapproval that Janet could not care less about.

"Whatever, sister," Janet said and snapped her fingers at the Major. Pepper stifled a laugh and silently thanked the heavens for the little discussion that had made her see that she had nothing to worry about.

xxxXXXxxx

She had spoken too soon.

_Way _too soon.

"I'll be fine! Just, RUN!"

Her command was immediately followed by the scared attendees to the panel, which had been rudely interrupted when AIM, of all people, had crashed the event on national television. At first, the redhead thought that their target had been herself, and she was honestly about to go off on the criminal group that she had nothing to do with Tony Stark anymore. But when she realized that the target was actually Betty Ross, she slapped herself mentally for thinking that she was still the center of attention for any enemy of Iron Man.

Thanks to the incredible coordination of anyone who was sane enough to usher people out of the building, the innocent bystanders were safe and out of AIM's reach. Betty had been taken by the police and was under their protection, but the deed of the redhead to get the cellular biologist out of harm's way had made her the target of the dozens of angry beekeepers that were now chasing her inside the building. No good deed goes unpunished, and all that jazz.

_This is the worst time ever not to be Rescue_, she thought as she rounded a corner, only to find out there were more AIM henchmen coming her way. _Dammit!_

She stood in the middle of the hall and stared back and forth, soon realizing she had shot herself in the foot and was now being cornered by the yellow-suited men. Their laser weapons were aimed at her front and at her back, and just as they were about to shoot at her, a sudden purple and gray flash picked her up from the floor and took her up to the second floor of the building.

"Hey, Pepper! Need a hand?"

"Maya!"

The new Rescue alter ego landed them both on the second floor balcony that overlooked the center of the first floor, and it was not until then that Pepper realized this was more than just a kidnapping attempt anymore. From her different vantage point, the redhead could now see that AIM was everywhere, trying to find both her and Betty Ross, while also fighting the recently arrived Iron Man.

"What are you doing here?" Maya asked and retracted her helmet to make sure the ginger was unharmed. "Are you alright?"

"Conference. And yeah, I'm OK, thanks to you," she sighed in relief and gave the girl a grateful smile before she saw an incoming attack from AIM henchmen, pointed her finger at it and yelled. "Maya! Watch out!"

The brunette closed her faceplate, turned around in place and used her shields to protect herself and Pepper. The ginger ducked on the ground and held her head between her hands as the magnified sounds of the repelled lasers echoed loudly inside the shield. When AIM realized there was no getting through their defenses, they decided to change their attack and began aiming their laser shots at the floor.

It only took a few seconds to make the balcony unstable, and the ground below their feet suddenly crumbled. The shock of the move threw off Maya's reactions, and since she was still not used to using the suit – especially now that Tony hardly ever took her out on missions with him – she ended up doing the only thing she could think to do. She grabbed onto Pepper's waist on their way down, twisted their bodies so that she was below the ginger, and took the hit for the redhead.

"UGH!"

The suit of armor had eased Pepper's twenty-foot landing on the first floor, but the brunette below her could only moan in pain when her back hit the pile of concrete rubble beneath her. Pepper instantly stood up from the girl and then helped Rescue get up from the ground as well. Seconds later, their presence was noticed by the beekeepers and the two of them were under attack again.

"Girl, wake up!" Pepper urged the confused brunette while she threw one of her arms under Maya's shoulders to support her wobbly form. "There's no time to lose! We gotta go!"

"Why is the room spinning?" Maya mumbled after opening her faceplate again and allowed Pepper to guide her away to wherever they were heading off to. "I think I broke my back."

Pepper gave the brunette a sad smile and shook her head.

"No, it just feels that way. You're still walking. You're good. Now let's get out of here before we–AAAH!"

The ricocheted laser hit her from behind. It sent her first to her knees and then on all fours, with Maya in tow. The brunette was yet to recover her senses after the fall, and with no one to hold onto, she fell to the floor, face first, instantly becoming unconscious when her exposed head impacted the ground. Pepper rapidly shook her head to focus, and when she turned to her right to talk to the brunette, she realized that the girl was out for the count.

"Oh, NUTS!"

Pepper looked up and around her, only to see the dozens of incoming beekeepers, all ready to take her and Maya down for good. The redhead began shaking Rescue, trying to wake her up, but she quickly recognized it was not going to happen.

_Oh, crap! Oh, CRAP! OH, CRAP!_

Her heart and mind were racing as the henchmen closed in on them. She stared at Maya's head that now rested on her lap and took in deep breaths. She had to think of something. She had to somehow get them both out of this; and whatever that was, she had to do it now.

She thought about putting on the suit and getting her and Maya out, but she doubted that AIM would give her a chance to do the transfer of the armor. She then thought about perhaps calling on Tony for help – who was currently very busy battling AIM's newest recruit, Whiplash, of all enemies, on the other side of the large conference room. Said idea was shot down almost instantly, as she could not risk distracting the inventor, who was yet to realize she had been caught in the middle of the fight. Any other options were limited by the time she was quickly running out of, and when a desperate idea finally came to mind, she had no option but to take it.

She took out her pod and connected to the Temple's servers, which connected to the suits. She then swiftly tapped on the phone to bring up Rescue's interface and, in a split-second, she did two things: she activated the voice feature of the suit, and she put in the wireless earpiece in her right ear. She then put the pod back inside her pocket, towered over Maya's body to protect her in case her idea failed, and then screamed the only command she knew that could save them both right now.

xxxXXXxxx

Iron Man had been having trouble keeping Whiplash at bay and preventing him from leaving the building in search of his target – Dr. Betty Ross, simply because he had not wanted to injure anyone with a more brutal attack on his part. Thankfully for him, the captain of the police force that had taken the doctor under their custody had just informed him that the area was clear, and other than him and Maya, who were still battling AIM, and the reject of Mr. Fix's robot collection, the coast was clear. He had no idea how, when or why Whiplash was now working for AIM, but either way the reasons spelled trouble for the young inventor and for anyone who got in their way.

_I should've seen this coming_, Tony thought bitterly as he avoided another hit from Whiplash. _If I'd taken more time to do recon, I would've seen this coming!_

Research was just not his thing, and he was now paying dearly for his mistake; for letting Pepper go. Pepper was the researcher, not him, and not having her in his life anymore was becoming more and more crippling to him. Not only was her absence making him bitter inside, but it was also reducing the positive impact Team Iron Man had on the world… and he knew that his company – their company – would also soon follow the path of doom, at the rate his apathy was increasing.

Maya helped every now and then, but he had long given up on ever training the brunette to fully replace the ginger. This time, he had only brought her with him to this mission because he knew he would need reinforcements, and someone was better than no one. Rhodey was still stuck at the Air Force Academy and Gene lived in China. Maya had been the best option available at the moment.

Or so he had thought.

_ "SHIELDS!"_

At hearing her desperate scream, Tony Stark stopped in his tracks and his eyes widened under his faceplate. He then looked over his shoulder, hoping he would not see what he knew he would see, and gasped.

"Pepper… no…"

The redhead was covering Maya's upper body with her own as the armor's shields built around them. Once the shield closed and the AIM attacks were deterred by the force field, Pepper lifted her head, stared all around her and sighed in relief. She then carefully placed Maya's head on the ground, stood up, turned to face Tony and double tapped her right ear.

_"Stark, Maya's down."_

He heard her icy voice inside his helmet and he soon realized she was connected to the Rescue interface via her pod. It took the inventor a few seconds to react to her words, and when he did, it had been only because Whiplash had managed to take advantage of his distraction and had hit him in the back, sending the red and gold suit of armor and its user crashing down to the floor.

_"Tony!"_

The anger that had been tightly attached to her voice, just seconds ago, melted away in the blink of an eye, and it was replaced by the true concern she felt at seeing Iron Man being ruthlessly attacked by Whiplash. Tony shook his head to shake off the hit and, seconds later, he began attacking the offender with equal or more force.

_"I'm OK,"_ he told her over the internal communications system. _"I'm alright. What about you, Pep?"_

"I'm fine," she responded, her eyes glued to the battle unfolding before her and she swallowed hard. It had been a long time since she had heard his voice; since she had heard anyone call her by her shortened pet name. Scott never did, anyway.

It hurt; hearing it again from the person that had given it to her, _hurt_.

"What's wrong with Maya?" he asked and then punched Whiplash in the face, kicked him in the chest, grabbed him by the shoulders, twirled in the air with him and then sent him flying off to the nearest wall, incapacitating him for a little while.

"She hit her head," she replied and then stared at the unconscious girl. "I… I don't know how much longer I can keep the shields up."

Tony spared her a glance and noted that the AIM beekeepers were all beginning to focus their attention onto the two practically defenseless girls, knowing that Whiplash would be enough trouble for Iron Man. The increased attacks were causing the shield to weaken, and some of the laser attacks were starting to go through random glitches of the failing force field.

"Put the suit on, Pepper," his voice was urgent. "Put it on, right now!"

"No," she shook her head. "It's no good, the power is on reserve. It's about to—AAH!"

His heart nearly stopped when he saw three of the laser beams filter through the force field and simultaneously hit her left shoulder, her stomach and her right knee. The impacts sent her crashing onto the force field behind her. She then fell to the floor, face down. An instant later, the only protection the two women had, disappeared before his eyes.

"NO!"

Tony took a step toward them, but one of Whiplash's whips surrounded his neck and pulled him back to their fight. Tony groaned and tried to pull the whip from his neck, but it just tightened even more with every move he made.

"**Where do you think you're going, Iron Man?**"

"Let… GO!" Tony turned around and fired all the weapons he had on hand at the attacker. The grip Whiplash had on the inventor loosened immediately with the over-the-top offensive move, and Tony all but flew in the direction of the ginger and the brunette. He was not so much concerned about Maya, since she was being protected by the armor, but Pepper had nothing to keep herself safe.

From his flying position, he took shots at the incoming henchmen before raising another shield around the girls. It took him a nanosecond to then reach the two fallen women, and another for him to take down the shield long enough for him to be able to go inside it with them before raising it again. Knowing that the force field he had just erected would last longer than the last one, he quickly kneeled on the floor next to the redhead, turned her over so that she faced up, held her in his armored-clad arms and shook her.

"Pepper, open your eyes, please. Pepper, say something!"

"Stop… shaking… me…" she said between moans of pain and her eyes slowly fluttered open.

Tony retracted his faceplate to take in all of her for a second, and then helped her sit up on the floor. He eyed the charred clothes over her shoulder and stomach, noted the rapidly forming bruise on her knee and frowned. He then lifted the bottom of her shirt to check on her stomach wound, and when she screamed in pain as the fabric peeled off her skin with the move and he noticed some blood coming out of the gash that had been left behind by the laser, he groaned.

"Dammit, Pepper! What the hell are you even doing here?"

"Saving… your girlfriend?" she replied in between clenched teeth and eyes and her hands flew to her stomach. "Ah! This fucking… hurts…"

"Don't move," he told her in an angry tone despite his worried face and the fact that he had just ran his fingers down her face. "You're making it worse."

"Don't think… it can get… any worse, Stark! UGH!" she yelled and began hyperventilating to try and reduce the pain.

Tony clenched his jaw, closed his faceplate and scanned her. Her lesions were not deep, probably would not even leave behind more than a slight scar, but they were fresh burns nonetheless, and the clothes attaching to the blood and scorched skin was painful in and of itself. His eyes then landed on the brunette that was still out like a light and he narrowed his eyes at her. They had only been in battle for half an hour; there was no reason for the armor's battery to run out so fast, unless…

_Unless Maya forgot to charge it, again!_

He was going to kill her!

His murderous thoughts were suddenly interrupted when Pepper's eyes widened and her mouth went agape, staring at something behind him. He followed the path of her eyes with his and when he saw that they were now surrounded not only by AIM henchmen, but also by a recovered Whiplash, his grip on the redhead tightened even more.

"Oh, we're screwed," Pepper said, exhaled in and out through her mouth and unconsciously returned the embrace Tony was giving her. "We're screwed, we're screwed, we're _screwed_!"

"No, we're not, Pepper," Tony said as he eyed their surroundings. "We're not screwed."

"Yeah, sure, whatever you say, Tony," she said in a sarcastic tone. "Maya's unconscious, her suit is offline, the shield you have up won't last much longer and it's draining your battery, and I'm growing a hole in my stomach. Yeah, that totally sounds NOT screwed to me!"

"Will you be quiet for a moment, Potts?" Tony snapped but pulled her closer to him. "I'm trying to think here!"

"Well, _excuse_ me for pointing out the obvious!" she spat back and pushed herself away from him. "Let me go die over there, on the other side of this fading protective bubble, away from your brain!"

"Stop it, Pepper!" he said to her and pulled her right back onto his lap. "Can't you see I'm trying to protect you?"

"Can't you see there's nothing you can do?"

"Yes, there is! I just need to figure it out! I need to… to…" he closed his eyes to think about what to do.

Pepper was correct, nonetheless. The shield _was_ quickly killing his battery, and even if he would suddenly try to take Maya and Pepper with him and try to fly off, AIM or Whiplash would get them. No matter how he sliced it, they _were_ screwed. Even the brainless AIM henchmen knew it. They were not even attacking them anymore; all they were waiting for was for the shield to give out, and the three of them would be sitting ducks.

_It can't end like this. I can't let them take us down like this! They won't harm her! I won't let them!_

"Tony?"

"Wait. I'm thinking, Pepper."

"Yes, but, Tony—"

"Wait, Pepper."

"Tony, listen to me!"

"Not now!"

"But, Tony—"

"Pepper, shut it!"

"TONY!"

"WHAT?"

"LOOK!"

Tony retracted his faceplate, stared in the direction the ginger was pointing, but saw nothing of significance at first. All he saw were rubble, broken laser guns, and downed AIM henchmen with their robotic parts scattered all over the floor.

_Wait, what? Robotic parts?_

"Do you see it, Tony?" the ginger asked, eyes wide with hope, and she used his shoulders to sit up straight on his lap. "They're not human. They… they're…"

"Robots," the inventor finished for her, finally understanding what she meant and looked down at her face. "Machines…"

"Computers," she said and he nodded at her.

Their eyes met for an instant and, had they had more time, they both knew what they would have done to the other just about now. Pepper was the first one to break the moment and looked away from him when she remembered the harsh words she had heard him say before. Not to mention, this was not the best time to think about their unresolved issues.

"I'll just… do it… Maya… I'll…"

"Yes, I know," he said and swallowed hard. He knew what he was risking right now, but there was no other way. Had he known before that the AIM members were nothing but robots, he would have taken them down when he had more defenses available, when Maya was not knocked out, and when Pepper would not be left unguarded when all of his energy and attention went to the attack he was about to unleash.

"Don't move until I tell you to."

"OK."

The redhead pulled away from him, painfully crawled her way to the brunette, grabbed onto Maya's head, placed it on her lap, covered her with her own body in case Tony's plan failed, and closed her eyes. Tony stood up from the ground, turned around in place to make a note of the number of AIM henchmen waiting for his move – hundreds now, gave Pepper's form a final glance and then closed his eyes as well.

"Pepper?" he whispered into the inner comm systems.

"Yes?" she answered through her earpiece without bothering to lift her head even though her bent-over form made her stomach burn ache.

"I'm sorry," he said in an earnest tone before the shield came down, the AIM men jumped at them, and he used all of his power and concentration to try to short circuit every AIM henchmen around, including and especially, Whiplash.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Carol Danvers is the first Miss Marvel. Janet Van Dyne is Wasp (and she acted like this before she got her powers). Betty Ross is Hulk's honey and future Red She-Hulk, and we all know who Jean Grey is. At this point, the only one with powers is Jean Grey and all the other women are still normal.


	9. Chapter 8

**A/N: **Almost the final stretch. And anyone wanting to grab a number to beat up Maya, please let me know and I'll reserve your spot.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 8: April<strong>

The disastrous execution of the AIM mission had taken place nearly a month ago, but Tony was _still_ utterly pissed off at his so-called girlfriend for reasons related to it. He still reminded her, any chance he had, that she owed Pepper not only her life, but also a massive apology for putting her in danger in the first place due to her carelessness and foolishness. Maya had already thanked and apologized plenty to Pepper about the whole deal – to his surprise, really, as he had doubted she ever would do so – but it appeared to Maya that all the apologies in the world were never going to be good enough for the blue-eyed boy.

_At least she hasn't told off Pepper about what she now knows about me and her_, he thought derisively.

He had been correct in his assumption that the Rescue suit of armor had failed during mid-assignment because Maya had forgotten to charge it after she had borrowed the backpack armor to continuously fly back and forth to MIT for her midterm exams, just days before. Needless to say – and despite the fact that, had it not been for said failure, he would have not seen and held Pepper again – once the brunette had woken up in the Makluan Temple after the battle against AIM, the inventor had gone off on her for her complete disregard of armor maintenance procedures. He had been so accustomed to Rhodey and Pepper being diligent about maintaining their suits and following all armor caretaking protocols, that when Maya failed to follow even the simplest rule, his patience was shot.

"_You're just __**so**__ irresponsible, Maya!" Tony threw a monkey wrench against one of the Temple's walls. "Pepper could've died protecting you, and it would've been your own damn fault if you'd died!"_

"_How was I supposed to know you'd ask me to help you out on a mission? You hardly ask me to help you anymore!"_

"_It doesn't matter! Rescue and Iron Man need to be ready for action at all times. I don't care if you have an eye exam, or a pedicure appointment, or if your fucking gerbil just died! Superheroes need to be ready for __**anything**__, at the drop of a hat!"_

"_First of all," she pointed an accusing finger towards him, "Leave Mr. Giggles out of this, alright? That gerbil spent more time with me than you do! And, sure!" Maya rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, "Ready for anything, huh? Just like you were ready to face those beekeepers and that weird, creepy whipping guy, right? Just like their actions didn't catch YOU by surprise, right?"_

_Tony's eyes narrowed. He had hoped that Maya would not figure out that he had had no idea that Betty Ross was a target of AIM even though now, in hindsight, all the signs he had missed during research pointed to that fact. It was so cringingly obvious to him now; __**after**__ the attack had already taken place, but he was not sure if they intended to try to kidnap her again. Nevertheless, he now saw the reasons why she would have been a target: her research and area of expertise was perfect for AIM's quest to further develop the controller disk that Basil Sandhurst had used on him before._

"_It's NOT the same," he defended himself. "Intel gathering is different. Random. You can't really control what you find and when you find it. The suits, on the other hand, should be ready to take on the Hulk, if that's what's needed of them."_

"_Well, I'm sorry!" she said in the most sarcastic tone she could muster. _

_Although she fully understood that what she had done was rather reckless on her part, she had also saved Pepper from being shot at by AIM in the hall. Why could he not see that? Yes, she had then placed the redhead back in danger again by blacking out on her, but what was she supposed to do about that? It was not as if she had purposefully passed out! She had no intention of dying either, so why was he not chilling the fuck out?_

"_It won't happen again," she continued her sardonic tone, more out of anger than anything else. "Next time Pepper's life is in danger, I'll just let her be shot to death by the enemy! Maybe I'll even help out a little! Make it swift and painless for her, you know? Maybe put a bullet in her head and end it quickly! No torture for her this time."_

_Not half a microsecond after her last word left her lips, she found herself being slammed against the hard temple wall by Tony's hands on her forearms, digging into her flesh like daggers. His face was marred by a grimace, and the look in his eyes was so intense, murderous, and filled with anger, that the brunette feared for her safety, if only for a moment in time._

"_Did you forget what I told about hurting Pepper? Did you forget what I've told you I'd do to anyone who hurts her?"_

"_Not at all since you remind me of it every second of the day," she responded after a gulp and tried to sound unthreatened by his current actions. "Why are you even dating me if you care so much about her, huh? So much that you don't care that you're hurting me right now? Why don't you just break up with me and go fuck her again, __like I know you're dying to do?"_

_Tony narrowed his eyes at her but did not respond, and instead just increased the pressure on her arms._

"_What?" she scoffed. "You thought I didn't know about that? We've been sharing a bed and a home, Tony. And I've heard you moan her name in your dreams and say that you love her. I heard your conversation with Rhodey a few weeks ago, and I heard you talking to him about sleeping with her when the Maggia had you two. Call me crazy, but I doubt that was part of the stakeout."_

"_You…" Tony gulped and began to ease his grip on her. "You misheard. I was just telling him what the Maggia thought we did because we were supposed to be engaged. You just misunderstood."_

"_Did I, really?" she smirked when Tony eased his grip on her and he began walking in reverse, away from her knowing eyes. _

"_Yes," he nodded. "You misunderstood. That's all."_

"_I didn't, though__I thought I did, too, at first. But then I remembered what she said in her interview at the morning show, and it all finally clicked. She practically gave it away, and no one even saw it because she did it so very well! It all finally made sense to me about why she left you after she found out you'd suppressed her memories. I mean, why wouldn't she leave? She gave you her body because she trusted you, and you betrayed her."_

"_I didn't… She… We didn't…"_

_Maya chuckled bitterly. "I don't know what else you did to piss her off. And I don't know why you're still with __**me**__, but I can only feel sorry for __**her**__. I can't even hate her for one-upping me with you. That moment between you two, it MEANT __something for her. She didn't even call it sex or a quick fuck. She called it: making love. Is that what it was for you, Tony? Or was it just a one-night stand?"_

_Tony's mouth hung. He had not expected the argument to take this turn, and when he repeated in his mind Pepper's answers to Ginny about her and him having an affair, he finally saw what the ginger had done; what she had probably tried telling him without even knowing or thinking._

**Pepper looked down and to the side for a moment. The redhead then looked at Ginny once again and inhaled deeply before she began her response.**

"_**An affair is usually a secretive or illegitimate sexual relationship between two people,"**_** Pepper stated. **_**"And my relationship and partnership with Tony has never been a secret. Neither of us is married, so it's not illegitimate. Which means that if we ever made love or were 'romantically involved'"**_** she air-quoted the last two words,**_** "then it wouldn't make it an affair, right?"**_

"_**Right,"**_** the reporter said, **_**"But—"**_

"_**But that's not enough of an answer for you,"**_** Pepper said. **_**"Because you and everyone else wants to hear me or him to say that we cheated on Maya and Scott, and you wanna be the first ones to find out about it so that you can divulge the word."**_

"_**W-Well,"**_** the reporter began to stutter. "**_**That's-that's not… uhm, really fair…"**_

"_**It's not about fairness, Ginny,"**_** Pepper shook her head, and even though her words were unruffled and her face was serene, Tony knew Pepper was pissed off to no end. He had seen her act like this with the board members, and he knew that she was everything but happy with the game the reporter was trying to play with her, on national television at that. **

"_**It's about the fact that I just donated a billion dollars to the cause of finding the cure to the number-one killer of women in this country, and all anyone has to say about it is: **__**Hey, did you ever fuck Tony Stark?**__** Well, sorry to break it to you: I've never **__**fucked**__** Tony Stark. But I've fucked Scott Summers, **__**a lot**__**, so unless you want to hear the specifics about that…"**_

Tony was still in disbelief that Maya had not walked out on him right then and there, after he had practically called her every nasty name in the book, including paranoid and crazy for thinking that he and Pepper had slept together. He had been even more shocked at finding out that, even after their initial and subsequent fights about the turn of events that had led to his and Pepper's separation, Maya had actually _helped_ Roberta organize the little gathering he was trying to avoid right now.

_Either she really loves me, or she's really stupid and desperate_, Tony thought irately as he stared at the ground from his leaning position by the rail on the Rhodes balcony. _And I'm as stupid as she for still being with her._

He was supposed to be inside the home with everyone else, celebrating his yet again unexpected early birthday party, but he was in no mood to see Scott with Pepper; most especially due to his disappointment that their moment together during the AIM mission had not improved the rift between them. Even though he was NOT supposed to be making any effort to have anything to do with her, the more he thought about everything, the more illogical his reasoning to continue avoiding Pepper became to him.

_"Robots," the inventor finished for her, finally understanding what she meant and looked down at her face. "Machines…"_

_ "Computers," she said and he nodded at her. _

_Their eyes met for an instant and, had they had more time, they both knew what they would have done to the other just about now._

"Even after I told her that I'm sorry," he whispered angrily. "Even after we both felt it… even then, she won't talk to me. Why?"

_Because you told her to fuck off, that's why, _the voice in the back of his mind reminded him and he groaned.

Not only had she not made an effort to talk to him at all today, but she had also bought a wedding dress, just last week. The thought alone made him sigh in exasperation. He had not expected them to suddenly be all happy and together again after they had completed the mission against AIM and Whiplash, but he _had_ expected her to at least try to have a civil conversation with him during this party. The more he thought about how she was currently behaving: as if the mission had never even happened, as if she had not wanted to kiss him as much as he had when their eyes had crossed paths, the madder and more frustrated he became.

Was she really _that_ mad at him? Was she really that adamant to have nothing to do with him? Yes, he had told her to leave him alone and had all but humiliated her and mocked their moment of intimacy together during the Maggia captivity, but he had just said those things out of anger, not out of truth. He was running out of ideas of what to do with himself: he was mad that they could not be together, but he was also trying to pretend that he did not want to be with her for the sake of his pride. He was trying to push Maya away, but he was at the same time trying to keep her around so that he would not be alone. He was trying to make a life of his own without the ginger, but he was also trying to find a way to bring her back to him.

In other words: he had no fucking clue at all what he was trying to accomplish at this point, and while he wasted time deciding what he wanted to do and what he had to do, Maya was breathing down his neck about getting engaged, Rhodey was calling him an idiot every time they spoke, and Pepper had _again _gotten injured under his watch.

_Oh, yeah! And she bought a freaking wedding dress!_

Even if his last ditch effort had paid off, and he had defeated AIM and Whiplash by hacking into them with Extremis – an action that left him tired and unconscious for a few hours – Pepper's burns had not healed yet, and he hated being responsible for them. He knew that said lacerations would have never been there in the first place had he and Maya been a little smarter about the fight – well, mostly Maya and not him – but the guilt was still present within him. Yes, Maya had saved Pepper and, yes, she had helped Iron Man a little, but it had been the genius' and Pepper's combined effort that had saved their own asses in the end. That mission had been the last time Rescue had been handled by Maya, and the brunette would never put on the suit ever again, if he had a say.

_I should just leave_, Tony thought and crushed the empty can of soda he had in his hand before aiming it and throwing it toward the trashcan in the corner. _They haven't even realized I'm outside._

Roberta had organized a surprise birthday party for the inventor, seeing as he had not been able to have a decent one in years. Shortly before his sixteenth birthday, his father had died. When he had turned seventeen, his heart implant had failed and he had ended up dead for a few minutes. When he had turned eighteen, the Makluan had invaded. When he had turned nineteen, Pepper had been recovering after almost dying on the Helicarrier. Today they were celebrating his turning twenty a week early, and even though nothing major had occurred today or in the past week, he still did not feel like celebrating the day of his birth and doubted he would feel any different when the actual day rolled around.

_Yup, I should just leave right now._

"You seem to like avoiding gatherings, don't you? That's odd for a public figure, like you," a voice behind him said, and the inventor had to bite down on his tongue not to growl. From all the people that had been invited to his birthday party, _why_ did this particular one _have_ to come looking for him?

"And you seem to just_ like_ finding me, don't you?" the blue-eyed boy said, turned around in place, crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the jock standing a few feet away from him. "And I'm sure as hell that Pepper didn't send you looking for me this time, so it musta been Mae."

Scott shrugged and shook his head.

"Actually, it was my idea. I'm here of my own accord, believe it or not. Maya's too busy talking to Pepper about organizing her bachelorette party, trying to convince her to let her bring over some strippers to it."

Tony arched his left eyebrow, but other than that, he did not allow his face to show the surprise he felt. Even if he was not frowning, Scott's demeanor showed that he was here on business, serious business, and most definitely not to argue. The last time the two of them had been alone like this had been in Pepper's hospital room after the Maggia stakeout, and they both knew that that particular encounter between them had not ended up very well for either of them. He just hoped that the man did not plan on ruining the birthday party that Roberta had spent weeks planning, by giving him a chance to throw him off the balcony tonight.

"What do you want?" Tony asked after a pause.

"To talk to you about Pepper, that's all."

"You mean about the girl that I let you have? _That_ Pepper?"

"No, the girl that you _couldn't_ keep," Scott replied instantly and out of habit before he groaned and sighed. "Look, I'm not here to fight, alright? I came here… to thank you."

Tony frowned and for a second wondered if he was dreaming again. "What?"

"I. Came here. To _thank_ you."

Tony's eyebrows shot up, and he had to stop his fingers from wanting to pinch his arm.

"Thank me? For what, exactly?"

"For saving Pepper, _again_. At first, I thought she was always in danger so much because she was with you. But now I'm starting to see that danger just likes finding her, and I'm glad that you were there to help her last month. I thought I would always be there for her to help her when she needed me, but I was… somewhere else at the time."

Tony shrugged and looked away. "It's no big deal. Just because we aren't on speaking terms, it doesn't mean that I wouldn't help her if she needed me."

"Maybe, but either way, you didn't _have_ to do it and you did. I usually wouldn't be this grateful to someone like you, but I would've spoken to you sooner about it, if I didn't want to worry Pepper about us talking, and… Well... you didn't _only _save Pepper that day. You… you _actually_ saved my kid, too."

"Well," Tony began, "It's like I said: it's not a… big… deal?" he cleared his throat and stared at the man between multiple blinks of his eyes. "What was that last part again?"

"My kid," Scott said and walked over closer to the inventor so that he could lower his voice. "Pepper's pregnant."

Tony was glad that it was already dark because he could feel all color drain from his face, and had he not been leaning against the rail, he would have fallen to the floor already. He remained silent for a moment, staring at nothing, and his hands grabbed the railing behind him for dear life.

He opened and closed his mouth several times, but no sound came out. What was he supposed to say to that? The standard response typically began with the word _congratulations_, but he could not bring himself to feel happy for him, her, or the baby that was apparently on the way. From all the things that could have happened on his birthday… from all the things that had _already_ happened during his birthdays… this appeared to be competing to be the worst one.

"When… when is she… due?" the genius finally found his voice again.

Scott sighed. "I don't know. She hasn't told me about it yet."

Tony's head jerked back and he turned to his left to stare at Scott, who was now resting his forearms on the handrail.

"Then, how do you even know she's expecting?"

_Maybe you're wrong_, was the thought he actually wanted to say.

"Maya told me about it. She told me Pepper has been getting all the symptoms, and even though she's been denying it to her and hasn't said a thing to me, I… I found a pregnancy test hidden under the sink in her dorm room. It was positive."

Tony swallowed down his heart, which was threatening to come out of his mouth, and he looked at the floor. He was at a loss for words again. He was not sure if he was angry, sad, shocked, disappointed, confused, happy, heartbroken or just a muddled combination of all of the above. He knew he should have seen it coming, just like he should have seen a lot of things in his life coming. But, as it had been the case when he had learned that Pepper had made Gene release Whitney from her Makluan prison, the news of Pepper having Scott's baby were a shock to him.

It was final: Pepper was officially off limits to him.

A long time had gone by since either of them had said anything, but who could really blame them for not speaking at all. Scott was worrying about being a father, and Tony had just heard that the woman he loved was having someone else's child.

"I-I've never had a baby before but, aren't you supposed to be happy about it?" Tony asked, nothing better to say coming to his mind; so much for being one of the smartest people in the world.

"I am, I think. But right now, I'm more scared than happy. I love Pepper, don't get me wrong, but we haven't even decided on a date for the wedding and now we have a deadline to meet. And, Pepper, I mean, you know her better than I do. She's a free spirit and now she'll have to change everything she's been doing because of this. She was supposed to be transferring to Berkley next year, and she wants to change her name to her birth name, and she was supposed to completely quit Stark Solutions in a few months, and—"

"What?" Tony shook his head. "She-she's leaving the state? Changing her name? She's giving up Stark Solutions altogether?"

Scott shrugged. "That's what she told me she's been doing. Your lawyer friend, Roberta, has been helping her with the paperwork."

Tony's mouth hung. He then chuckled bitterly and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Well, thanks for the heads up, Summers! Why are you even telling me this? You enjoy seeing me flip out?"

"I do," Scott agreed and the inventor glared at the jock. "But that's not why I'm telling you this right now."

Tony gave Scott a doubtful look, but then gave him a curt nod to tell him to continue.

"I'm telling you this because I don't have anyone else to turn to. I don't know what I _should_ do for her, or how to make her understand that what she wants to do is ridiculous. I know that you still love her and care for her, and I think that maybe you can convince her not to move away and not to change her life so drastically. She won't listen to me about it, and with a baby and the hormones…"

Scott sighed in hopelessness, and Tony pouted because he understood what Scott meant. Pepper sometimes tended to be impulsive and somewhat reckless, especially when she felt cornered. Even after years of knowing her, Tony could not anticipate _how_ she would react to having a baby before she turned twenty, before she got married or before she even finished school. He knew that being pregnant for her right now probably seemed like a rather stupid move; a careless one at that, and one that would probably bring loads of grief to her and Scott from the media and from all those other chumps who would not hesitate to make a quick buck by insulting her.

"I'm just afraid of what she could do," Scott continued. "She told me about her birth mom killing herself and I'm scared for her. Even as much as she hates your guts right now, she'd still listen to you. I know she would."

"I," Tony shook his head and exhaled through his mouth. The situation was even graver than he had thought it was. It was not just the fact that he was crushed that the ginger would have Scott's child, it was the fact that being friends with the inventor had been what had brought her to the spotlight. It was her connection with him that made her every move become highly scrutinized by everyone, everywhere – that much he had learned after seeing her interview on _Good Morning America_.

"I don't think she'll listen to me anymore," he finally said. "But she might still listen to Rhodey or Gene. I'll tell them about it and ask them to talk to her."

"Thanks," Scott said with a small smile. "I'd appreciate that. I know it's supposed to be me who should be supporting her at a time like this, but I'm no celebrity. I don't know how to handle this."

"None of us do until we have to," Tony shrugged.

Scott gave Tony a final, thankful nod and then returned to the party in the living room, leaving the inventor to sulk alone – but not for long. A few minutes after the jock left, Maya Hansen appeared before the billionaire with a knowing smile and, at that moment, Tony knew that Maya had sent Scott to him for help. He was not sure if he should have been happy or angry about it, or why she had thought it would be appropriate in the first place. In the end, it did not really matter why she had done it. What mattered was that Pepper got some help.

The girl shrugged at his silent question, but the gesture confirmed what he had already deduced himself. The brunette then took careful steps toward him and stood to his left, in the same fashion Scott had done so not a moment ago. She waited for him to go off on her again, to ask her why the hell had she not told him that Pepper was pregnant from Scott, or to at least push her off the balcony and make it look like she had tripped, but when he just remained silent and still for a long time, she decided to be the one to speak first.

"I really don't hate her, you know? I want her to be happy, and deep inside, I think you want that for her, too."

He said nothing at all, so she continued.

"And if she's bought a wedding dress, and just agreed to let me be her maid of honor and she's having Scott's baby, then maybe that means she wants to be happy, too. And I'm sorry that being happy for her means being with him and not with you, but that's how it is. You and me: it was good between us for a while, but now…"

She sighed, looked back over her shoulder to make sure they were still alone and continued.

"Now all we do is fight. And we haven't even gone out on a date in forever and… and all because you're mad that you're not with her. It's not my fault, Tony. It's really not my fault. I've tried being there for you in any way I can, but you don't even notice my efforts. I know that you don't even care if I come back home from school or not. And when I'm sure that there's no saving our relationship – or whatever you want to call this – you surprise me with a kind word or a real kiss and I… I don't know what to do, then. I don't know what you want. I don't know how to make you happy. I want to make you happy, but I'm… _stuck_!"

At that moment, and despite the setbacks between them, Tony felt like the worst asshole to have ever lived. He had an extremely patient, gorgeous and intelligent woman by his side, willing and wanting to please him in any way he wished, and he was treating her like dirt. Perhaps, yet again, Maya was correct. Perhaps Pepper was happy without him, and this was why she had not even wished him a happy birthday yet. Perhaps, and as much as it pained him, he _did_ have to move on.

When Tony leaned down to kiss Maya and then asked her a very important question she obviously agreed to, the brunette became one-hundred percent certain that going through the trouble of faking a pregnancy test had unequivocally paid off.


	10. Chapter 9

A/N: Some Pepper and some Ony in here.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 9: May<strong>

"I'm so sorry, Happy," the redhead said with a gloomy face. "This is so NOT fair to you!"

"Well, what ya gonna do, right?" Happy shrugged from his position in the chair, sitting at a table across from Pepper at the place she had invited him to meet up. "It happens to the best of athletes. H3 is no more."

"Yeah, when they're, like, forty!" Pepper slammed her fists on the table, making the entire meal shake and everyone else in the restaurant stare at her with confused looks. "You can still heal! They're not even giving you a chance to heal!"

"Because they don't have the time, Pepper. The basketball season is going on right now and they don't need me at the bench. Doc said that it's gonna take years for my wrist to recover full mobility, and ESU doesn't have years to play this season."

Pepper scoffed in anger and slammed the table with her fists once more.

"Well, that's just _bullshit_! Utter bullshit! That's, like, the worst kind of bullshit that I've ever… ever… uhm… ahem… Hehe…" her eyes suddenly landed on a nearby woman who was glaring at her as she covered her son's ears with her hands.

"Sorry," Pepper flinched.

The mother shook her head at the redhead in a disapproving manner and Pepper meekly apologized again. She then returned her eyes to their table and, after realizing that they had finished eating a long time ago, she took out a few bills from her pocket, left them in the middle of the table and stood up from her chair.

"Come on, Happy. Let's go talk somewhere else."

"Alright," the jock said and followed the ginger out the restaurant and to the streets.

Scott was out with ESU's track team at a competition out of state, and he would not be back for the next few days. Pepper had already finished taking all of her final exams and had at least two weeks free of school time before she started the summer school session, sacrificing her summer only in hope that she could cut down her five-year degree to maybe just three or four years.

Last night, and in a moment of loneliness, she had gone to the basketball game on campus, only to find out that Harold "Happy" Hogan – or H3 – had been kicked off the team. At first, she had thought that it had been because his grades might have slipped, or maybe because he had been caught cheating off some very smart student, like he used to do with Tony back in high school. But when she had been told that it had been due to an injury, she had been immediately scared and concerned for him.

Today, after looking for him and inviting him for a lunch date, she had just found out that not only had he been kicked off the team, but out of the school too. This was his last week on campus before he would be forced to go home without an education, without his athletic scholarship and without anything to show for the two years he had been in school.

"This just pisses me off, Happy," Pepper said as they rounded the corner and hailed a cab. "It really does! I know you playing for them was part of the scholarship deal, but they don't even have the decency to give you the chance to recover or transfer to another school, even _after _you won the championship for them last year! What kind of fucked up shit is that?"

"Wow, Pep!" Happy shook his head in amusement at the number of expletives that had left Pepper's mouth so far. He then opened the cab door for her to get inside the taxi that had just stopped for them at the curb. "You'd think that it was _you _who got expelled and not me. I don't think I'm _that _mad about it!"

"You're my friend and injustice pisses me off," she said and then waited for the jock to close the door behind him before she continued speaking. "I should transfer myself out to another university in protest! They're using my presence at the college to boost up their numbers. I oughta just leave, too."

"Where to?" the taxi driver suddenly asked, taking advantage of the pause in the conversation.

"Central Park," Pepper replied. The driver nodded and began driving off.

"Don't do that, Pepper," Happy said. "I'll get over it. I can maybe go to a community college and get a degree there."

"On what, Happy? You wanted to be a P.E. teacher and you have to go to a four-year college for that."

"Oh, yeah," his shoulders sagged. "You're right."

"Ugh! So unfair!"

Pepper crossed her arms and legs and looked out the window. As the taxi cab continued its trek to the park, the redhead's mind began to think about what, if anything, she could do for her friend. She understood that the contract the jock and the school had had required him to be available to play in order for the scholarship to continue, but she also knew that for the school, the basketball games were more important than the players. The games brought in revenue – lots of it, in fact – and losing one key player that was not even paying his way through school was obviously more cost-effective than paying his medical bills for the rest of his life.

Business-wise, she understood the school's reasoning. On a personal level, it made her very, _very _upset. Happy's grades were not the best, and trying to afford college at this point, when he had survived on athletic scholarships all his life, was going to be very difficult for his family. He could maybe do what she had planned to do before she and Tony became business partners and work his way through college, but she was also aware that the man would probably never finish school at that pace and would never be the teacher he had always wanted to be.

_ Unless…_

An idea came to mind and she smiled.

"Hey, sir?" the redhead rapped on the window that separated the two seats in the cab. "Sir?"

"Yes?"

"Actually, can we go to Stark Solutions, please?"

The man was taken aback for a second. He had never been asked to drive to a multinational company by two scrawny kids before. He had driven business men and women over to the building in question, but hearing the same request from two young people was odd to him. Even though the CEO of Stark Solutions was very well-liked by his employees, it had been noted multiple times, by many people that had visited the corporation as guests, that reaching the premises was difficult to do. It did not surprise him one bit, though, since the owner of the company was none other than Iron Man, so he could only imagine that the security procedures at the place were top notch.

"Are you sure?" the man asked. "I… I can't even get into their parking lot without a tag, pre-approved clearance and written permission."

"What are you doing, Pep?" Happy asked, also confused by the sudden change of destinations. "Why are we going there?"

"Just take us there, OK? I'll pay you double the fare if you do," Pepper told the driver before she redirected her attention to the jock, patted his shoulder and smiled. "Trust me. It'll be alright."

xxxXXXxxx

The cab driver was sweating bullets by the time he arrived at the entrance of the Stark Solutions visitors' parking lot. Upon arrival, and in a matter of seconds, four men immediately surrounded the car and asked the man what his business was at the premises. The driver shrugged, clearly afraid of being arrested or losing his license for trespassing, and when he was asked again why he had parked at the entrance without a tag or permission, Pepper stuck her head out from the passenger's window.

"Hey, there, Derrick!" she said with a smile and a wave of her hand. "Mind if I'm dropped off at the entrance? I really don't feel like walking."

The man's face denoted how shocked he was at seeing the redhead that had all but disappeared from the company months ago. He blinked several times as he walked over to the back seat to make sure he was not seeing things and, a second later, a smile framed his face.

"Pepper! Oh, my God! I can't believe you're here!"

"Yeah, well, I wanted to come see everyone," she said. "I don't want you guys to forget that I still sign your paychecks."

Oh, how happy she now felt that Rhodey's seemingly random call to her after Tony's birthday party had helped put some sense into her personal situations! Otherwise, she would have not had the chance to do what she was about to do now: take advantage of her position as half-owner of Stark Solutions to help a friend. Although, she was still not sure why Rhodey had thought that she was pregnant with Scott's baby – that had come up out of the blue, and she was being very careful about that now – but otherwise, a nice, long chat with the Air Force cadet had cleared up many things for her as it had helped her see things in a different light.

Derrick threw his head back in laughter and then called over the other three men with his hand.

"Hey, get over here, fools! It's Pepper!"

"What?"

"Really?

"Alright!"

To the cab driver's surprise and Happy's shock, the four men that had just a while ago seemed threatening were all now laughing and joking around with the ginger. Five minutes later, and after being given the all-clear, Pepper said goodbye to the security guards, and the driver was allowed to drive the taxi all the way to the front of the building. Pepper then paid the man what she had promised him, and then she all but pulled Happy out of the cab and into the lobby, waving at some of the employees that recognized her and said hi to her.

"Dude, did you just totally pull rank on those people?"

Pepper chuckled. "Don't have to. I'm the boss, remember?"

"Yeah, it's just…" he shrugged. "Well, I heard on TV that you were no longer the CEO and well… I thought that you had quit everything."

"No, I didn't. I'm still one of the head honchos around here."

"Cool!"

"Very cool," she said with a wink and then stopped at the reception. "Hi!"

The woman slowly looked up from the computer screen and then her eyes were as wide as Derrick's eyes had been. The only difference was that, this time, the woman stood up straight from her chair and began stuttering.

"Miss… Miss Potts! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I-I didn't know you were coming! I… Did I miss a memo? I missed a memo, didn't I? Oh, dear! Let me get you something to drink, or maybe you're hungry?"

"Relax, Marianne," Pepper smiled. "I'm just here to talk to Tony. But I do need you to do me a favor, if you can."

"Yes, absolutely, Miss. What can I do for you?"

"Can you take care of my friend, here, while I go up to the office? I'll be back in no time."

The woman looked at the large, awkwardly smiling boy that was standing next to the redhead and then shrugged.

"Yes, I can do that. Is there any particular place you want him to go?"

"Why don't you show him around the place? Show him how awesome it is to work here," Pepper replied. "Codes still the same to go up?"

"Uhm, yes, ma'am," Marianne nodded. "As far as I know."

"Good," Pepper said and then stared at Happy. "Happy, this is Marianne and she will be showing you around. Don't get in trouble while you wait, OK? I'll be back soon."

"Oh, OK," Happy said, shook hands with the woman and then changed his tone of voice to the one that Pepper knew he used to pick up girls. "Harold Hogan. But you can call me: Happy. Pleased to meet you."

Pepper shook her head, giggled and then prayed that her sudden decision to talk to the inventor did not backfire on her.

xxxXXXxxx

Bambi's years of professional experience were the only thing that prevented her jaw from slacking and her eyes from bugging open when she saw the redhead walk out of the executive elevator and make her way to her. The girl was wearing such a plain outfit that it was impossible to even imagine that she owned half of the revenue the company had made last quarter, and even though she had never met her in person, she just knew that her presence here had to be significant.

Pepper's hands had begun shaking when she had boarded the elevator, and she kept rubbing her fingers together to try to calm her nerves. She had not seen the inventor since his surprise birthday party last month, and even then they had kept their distance, again. She had gotten the feeling that Tony was finally learning to avoid her and had truly moved on, and while this was what she had been aiming for since their fight nearly a year ago, she could not help but to feel saddened by the fact that their time together had come to an end.

It was heart-wrenching for her to see him again so soon, especially knowing what she was about to do, and especially since her heart still belonged to him. It was so conflicting for her, to still be engaged to Scott while she still deeply cared for Tony, and seeing him right now was more than torture for her. But Happy was their common friend, and she just knew that, despite their differences, Tony would be willing to help out.

"Hi," Pepper said to the older woman. "Sorry to bother you. I… I think you're new here, right? My name is–"

"Pepper Potts," Bambi said with a smile and extended her hand towards the girl. "It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am. I'm Bambi Arbogast. I'm Mr. Stark's secretary."

Pepper returned the hand shake and followed it with her normal response to the use of the word _ma'am_.

"Hi, Bambi. It's nice to meet you, too. And, name's _Pepper_."

Bambi's smile widened. "Are you here to see Mr. Stark?"

"Yeah," she rubbed the back of her neck. "Is he here? I know I don't have an appointment, but—"

Whatever else the ginger was about to say died on her lips when Bambi went around her desk and began ushering the redhead to Tony's office. Before she realized what had just occurred, Bambi had knocked on Tony's door and was now keeping it open for Pepper to go inside. Pepper only nodded, still in a daze, took a step inside the office, and did not even hear the door close behind her. Tony's eyes were on the desk, hunched over some schematics, and he had not even bothered to look up to see who his secretary had just brought inside.

"This better be good, Bambi," he grumbled, placed his pencil behind his ear, and then his eyes aimed at the door, only to widen them in surprise.

"Hi," she said, her voice almost a whisper. She gave him a small wave of the hand and then exhaled. "Sorry to bother you."

"Pepper?" his eyes immediately went to her stomach. The only thing he could process right now was the knowledge of the baby he still believed she was carrying inside – Scott's baby at that – a thought that still made his blood boil despite the normal conversation he had had about it with the jock.

Rhodey was yet to relay the update to the inventor about the confusion, and only because the Air Force man was not sure if Pepper was trying to keep the news a secret. Tony's gaze then moved up to her face and he frowned.

"What do you want?"

The girl's head jerked back. She was not expecting a welcome with flowers or parades, but she had not expected his demeanor to be so aggressive right off the bat. She swallowed hard, licked her lips and looked away.

"I," she inhaled deeply to gather her wits, put on her business face and then stared at him again. "I'm here to ask for a favor."

Tony leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest and did not even bother to invite her to sit down or walk closer to him.

"What favor?"

"I'd like your immediate approval to hire a new employee."

Tony raised a single eyebrow. From all the favors she could have possibly asked him for, this was not one that was at the top of his list. Was this her way of asking for her CEO job back? Or was she wanting to bring someone over that had not made it through the interviews, but had somehow convinced her to advocate for them? Or maybe, just maybe, she had finally told Scott that he was going to be a father and she had got it in her head that perhaps the jock would need to get a real job.

"Who?"

"Happy."

This time, both eyebrows shot up. "Happy?"

"Yes. Happy."

His tense shoulders relaxed, but his face remained unyielding.

"Isn't he supposed to be at school, shooting hoops?"

Pepper shook her head. "Not anymore. He got kicked out."

"What? _Why_?"

"He broke his wrist."

Tony's head recoiled. "Really? Playing? Is he alright?"

"He's fine, but since he won't recover soon, ESU cancelled his scholarship."

"Well, that sucks!" he said, honestly upset for his friend. "So, he's looking for a job now?"

"Not really, but I want to help him. And since his parents don't have a college fund and he won't be able to play anymore…" she shrugged. "I heard Stark Solutions has a very flexible work schedule," she said with a small smile, trying to ease the tension. "I heard that they let you do homework on the job and even let you leave in the middle of the day for class."

Tony looked away from her eyes for a second. He too remembered the moment she was referring to. And even though it felt very distant and like nothing more than a dream, he could still feel their hands laced together, smell the hot milk he had made for them, and taste the cookies in his mouth.

"Does he know you're doing this?" he finally asked after the memory faded away, his eyes still glued to the window that overlooked the city.

"No. I didn't want to promise anything if I didn't know I could deliver. I… Well, you're the only official boss now. It would've been rude of me to go over your head."

"I see," he said, still not looking at her. "Is he here?"

"Marianne is showing him around."

"Ah!" he said with a hint of a smile and tapped his fingers on the desk. "I'll make sure to give her the rest of the day off, then. She's gonna need it."

He playfully rolled his eyes at his own joke, and when she giggled lightly because of it, he felt some of the anger melt away. His eyes then met hers for a silent minute, and it was her who had to look away this time around.

"So, is it OK for him to work for you?"

"I don't see why not," Tony shrugged. "I don't know what I can have him do 'round here, but I'll think of something."

Pepper smiled and stole a quick glance at him.

"Thank you, Tony."

His only response was to nod and he again stared at her stomach. He was dying to ask the damn question, or to at least inquire about the status of her injuries from the AIM mission, but right as he felt the questions come to his lips, the door behind her opened and Maya almost crashed into Pepper's back.

"Sorry! I, uhm… Pepper?"

"Hey!" Pepper said and was then hugged by the excited brunette.

"I didn't know you were here!" Maya said after breaking the hug. "You've been so busy, girl! I've totally wanted to talk to you, but you haven't returned my calls! I'm supposed to be your maid of honor, but we haven't even met about what you want me to do."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Pepper shrugged. "Finals, volunteering, Scott's track meet, and… other things…"

"Oh, I bet!" she winked at the redhead and then began walking over to Tony, both women failing to notice how his heart had begun racing when he remembered the important new development in his life that he was yet to let the redhead know about. "I'm gonna be that busy too, very soon," Maya continued and placed a kiss on Tony's lips.

"What do you mean?" Pepper asked and tilted her head, trying her best to ignore what she had just seen.

"What?" Maya began and stared back and forth between the surprisingly quiet Tony and his former roommate. "You mean, Tony hasn't told you?"

"Told me, what?" she did not dare to look at him now.

Maya giggled like a little schoolgirl before she ran back to the redhead, who was still standing by the door, and enthusiastically waved her left hand at her to show her a gigantic ring on her finger.

"We're getting married! Can you believe it? Tony finally popped the question!"

Pepper's mouth went slack and she felt her eyes immediately fill with unshed tears.

"Did-did he?" she swallowed hard, her eyes staring at the ring that silently mocked her. "He… he didn't… he hasn't told me… yet. I… uhm, I've been b-busy…"

_"I thought about you all day, like I always do. Especially when we robbed this jewelry store and I saw a ring I'd like to see on you one day."_

Pepper closed her eyes and mouth for a second, gulped again and then smiled. "Congratulations!"

"Oh, Pepper! Thank you!" the brunette said and hugged her again. "Aw, look at you! You're crying for me! That's so sweet!"

"Yeah," Pepper said with a broken voice, and it was not until then that Tony realized what he had done. His question to the brunette had been impulsive, born out of guilt for the way he had been treating her, and as the days had gone by, it had become difficult to take the words back.

"When did he ask you?" Pepper asked, using all of the self-control she had to keep her voice as steady as she could. "When's the big day?"

"It was last month, during his birthday party."

"Oh," was the only response the ginger could complete.

"Yeah, it wasn't romantic or anything. I mean, come on, it's Tony. Romance and he are, like, mortal enemies or something. Right?"

_"Pepper, when we get out of here, when this is over, I want us to go on a vacation. An actual vacation, this time. I want us to go up to the mountains, just you and me, and spend an entire week there, alone, away from all of this. I want to wake up like this with you every day we're there. And then, when we come back, I want you to move in to my room, permanently, and just do this every day with you."_

_ "That sounds good, Tony, but I'm afraid it's gonna have to wait."_

_ "What? Why?"_

_ "Have you forgotten about Maya and Scott? We still need to talk to them and explain this to them, and it's probably not going to be good, easy or short."_

_ "Oh," Tony said. "I-I… you're right. I… I did forget about them. How… when do you want to tell them?"_

_ "I… I don't know. I have to think about it. For you it's just going to be a relationship breakup, but for me… well… I have a ring."_

_ Tony sighed. "Yeah, the ring – that fucking ring. Which, by the way, it's not good enough for you. When I get you yours, it's gonna be so much better than that, I promise."_

_ "When?" she chuckled. "**When**, Tony, really? Don't you mean: if?"_

_ "Hell no! Not if, when. WHEN I get you yours."_

"Right," Pepper finally said and gave Tony a final glance that he did not have the guts to return. "Well, I just stopped by to ask for a favor and… uhm, Tony's gonna do it, so… ahem, congratulations, again. I'll call you when I finish doing some stuff I have… pending… OK? I have to go now. Happy's… he's… he's waiting for me downstairs."

"Happy, the basketball guy?" Maya asked.

"Yeah, that's the one. Tony, he can explain it to you. I really gotta run!"

"Aww, OK, Pepper. Well, I'll be waiting for your call. This," she pointed to her ring, "We just _have _to celebrate!"

"Oh, we will. See you later. Bye."

And before Bambi could see the tears in her eyes, the ginger was gone.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** You must be wondering how the hell will ever fix this, right? It'll be SO easy. I swear. Stick around!


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: June**

The party for the birthday celebration of the star runner of ESU, Scott Summers, was practically a riot. The school had never before made it to the national track meet finals, and thanks to the jock's efforts last month, the university could finally add a few missing medals to their history and displays. The man turned twenty today, so there was no alcohol involved (and even if he had turned twenty-one, the celebration was on campus, so drinking was out of the question) but that did not mean that the college students were not living it up. Every college student was currently having a blast, _except _the celebrated one and his fiancée, Pepper Potts.

She had been trying to act as if she was fine, as if nothing was bothering her. But after finding out that Maya Hansen and Tony had gotten engaged, her heart had finished breaking beyond repair. She knew she had no right to be upset about it; she had been the one that had not given him a chance to talk things out. She had gone off on him and had continued with her plans, but it was now that she realized that letting anger and pride guide her decisions in the past year had been the worst thing she could have done to herself.

This, whatever pain she felt at the moment despite the happiness occurring all around her, was all her doing, and no one else was at fault.

_"That's all your doing, Pep."_

The irony of the phrase made her eyes sting again.

Her ache had increased tenfold when Maya and Tony had arrived on campus. Neither of them attended ESU but, apparently, Scott had told Maya about the party, and the brunette had invited herself and Tony to the celebration. She was certain that there were many other people that did not attend ESU on campus right now, but the only two that bothered her with their presence were the genius and his bride-to-be.

_His bride-to-be_, Pepper thought with disdain. _He's getting married to her. He's… he's marrying her!_

Was this how he had felt when she had gotten engaged to Scott? Was this how it felt to watch the person you love be happy with someone else?

"_Pepper?"_

"_Ya-hum?"_

_Her eyes were closed, lost in the glory of his caresses. Her hands lazily ran through his hair while he placed random kisses on her neck and on the side of her face. His hands slid up and down from under her arms to her hips. It had been so long since she had felt like this: treasured, loved, __**desired**__; and the last time she had felt like it at all had been when they had spent that drunken night at the motel. It was nothing less than sad and disappointing, however, that Scott did not make her feel this way when they were alone. _

"_Don't marry him."_

_She froze on the spot and her hands stopped moving, but she did not face him as he continued to indulge in her neck. She was aware that accepting his silent proposition while dancing at the club had immediately nullified her compromise with Scott, so she saw no need for him to even bring up the topic, especially since he was NOT even supposed to know about it in the first place. How he had found out about it and when was not known to her, but her true worry did not lie in his detective skills for now. Her current issue went beyond finding out who had told the inventor about her engagement with Scott, and it related more to Tony's tone of voice._

_There was something in the way he had uttered those words to her, that __**command**__ he had just given to her that made her feel as if this was only the beginning of what he was going to tell her right now; perhaps even more than she was willing to hear as of yet. He had not used his Tony Stark voice to say those words; he had used his Iron Man tone, which meant that he was getting very serious about this conversation and about where he planned to take it at this time. _

_When she did not say anything else, lost in her own thoughts, Tony continued. _

"_Don't marry him," he repeated, more sternly this time. "Marry me."_

"_W-w-wah?" she swallowed hard. She knew what she had accepted to do with her nod back at __**The Rotary**__, and she knew that he knew too. She had thought, however, that he had meant for them only to start dating and see where and if the relationship would lead anywhere else. It now appeared, conversely, that he had been a lot more serious than she had thought he could be: a whole, fucking lot** more** serious._

"_You heard me," he said and pulled away from her neck to stare directly at her eyes. "Don't do it. Stay with me. Don't marry him."_

_She gulped and felt her entire body begin to shiver under his gaze. "But-but… T-Tony… I…"_

"_No," he said, and when she tried to look away from him, he held her face in his hands. "Listen to me, Pepper. I... I-I," he sighed, his voice suddenly trembling in fear that he had said too much, too soon. _

"_I don't know what he offered you – Scott – or what he thinks he can give you but I, I… you know I'll give you anything you want. Whatever it is that you need or want me to do, I'll do it, Pepper. I'll do it for you, no questions asked."_

No questions asked. Another phrase she now hated.

"_Hey, I thought you said I only had fifteen minutes to get ready," he pulled her chair out after she placed the plate in the middle of the two-person table._

"_You did," she gave him a quick thankful nod for the gesture and sat in the chair. "If I'd given you more, you'd take longer and I didn't want the food to go cold."_

"_Oh," he said and sat in his chair, opposite to the redhead. "I'll keep that in mind."_

"_Don't," she warned. "You don't know when you really have fifteen minutes or not."_

"_Hn," he mused as he evenly split the pancakes between them. "True, but all I gotta do is take you out dancing and you'll forgive me for being late."_

"_Hey!" Pepper narrowed her eyes at him. "No fair! You know I can't refuse a good dance!"_

"_Ha-__**HA**__!" he pointed his fork at her. "I know your weakness, Potts! And that, my beloved, is why you will never be able to stay mad at me forever. I'm your dancing partner for life."_

"_Ugh!" Pepper groaned and violently stabbed the pancake. "One day, Stark. One day I will find your damned weakness and you'll just have to do as I say. No questions asked. Mark my words."_

"_Marked."_

How had Tony survived all this time?

_I put him through hell._

It was now her turn to suffer in the same way she had made him suffer, albeit unbeknownst to her for the first year of their college lives, and on purpose for their second year in school that was now ending.

_What was I thinking?_ She asked herself. _Why did I waste an entire year trying to make him pay?_

Make him pay for what, exactly? She did not even know anymore.

_ "I don't understand, Pepper. This… __**where**__ is this coming from? I thought… I thought we'd decided to be together. I thought… I thought you loved me!"_

_ Pepper scoffed. "Why would you think that?"_

_ "Why would I not?" he spat back and began listing his reasons with the fingers of his right hand. "We slept together, for one, and you told me you loved me! And I… I thought you knew I love you too! Or at least that was the situation between us the last time we spoke. I just don't understand why you changed your mind all of a sudden. __**Why**__ are you're leaving me?"_

_ "You shouldn't sound too shocked, really. You should've seen this coming."_

_ "WHAT?" he shook his head left and right. "How in the __**hell**__ would I'd have seen this coming, Pep? I left five days ago for a mission and I come back and you just drop this bombshell on me like it's nothing? I haven't been able to talk to you because you were unconscious, remember? What the fuck happened when I was gone?"_

_ "I woke up, Tony," she finally stared at him but her gaze on him was everything but pleasant. "I opened my eyes and I know what you and Gene did to me."_

_ He flinched. "H-how… huh… uhm, Pepper… look… let me explain…"_

_ "Shut up!" she said and turned her body so that she completely faced him now. "I don't want to hear the excuses I've already heard from Gene."_

_ "You-you've spoken to Gene?"_

_ "Yes. And he told me everything, and even though he was part of it, YOU'RE the one who asked him to do it. You're the one who wanted me to forget about us!"_

_ "To protect you, Pepper!" he faced her too. "To keep you safe! To not have you involved in more of the same danger I've already put you through! It's not so hard to understand! I did it for you, Pep! I did it because I love you, so damn much!"_

Her reasons for being angry at him seemed so insignificant now. Now she saw what he had done for her; now she understood what he had meant.

_Tony clenched his eyes for a moment and his shoulders sagged. He then opened his again, stared at her eyes and rested his hands on her shoulders. _

"_Pepper, please. Don't… don't do this. We can talk this out. I… I'm sorry, alright? You know I am! I-I want you, Pepper. I __**need**__ you. I… I was going to tell you everything and take it back and… __**please**__… don't do this to me… to us…"_

_ Against her will, the ginger's eyes filled with tears and she forced herself to look away from his pleading face. _

"_There __**is**__ no __**us**__, Tony. There __**can't**__ be an us when I can't trust you… when I __**don't**__ trust you. When I'm engaged to someone else… to Scott."_

_ "The hell you are!" his hands slid down to her upper arms and he pulled her closer to him, slightly shaking her as he spoke. "You don't belong with him, Pepper! You belong with me! You don't even love him! You can't be happy with him!"_

She had tried to be happy with him, with Scott. She had really tried and she knew that he had tried to make her happy, too. But Tony had been right. She just could not be happy with him. She could never make it work with Scott.

"_What, Pepper?" he whispered to her. "What do you want? Tell me. We-we can still fix this. We can make it work."_

_Pepper shook her head vehemently and pulled her head away from his grasp. _

"_All I want… all I__** really**__ want… is to have __**never**__ met you. You… you wanted me out of your life? Well," she gulped. "You can be sure you'll get that now."_

Her eyes drifted towards the recently engaged couple again, and she bit back a sob. Tony was sitting in a chair and the brunette was sitting on his lap. He seemed happy to have her with him, and she was all but glowing, her arms around his shoulder; just as the redhead's arms had been around him plenty of times.

_Tony grabbed Pepper's right hand in his and slowly kissed the back of it several times until he had not left any part untouched. He then turned his swiveling chair around and in a swift move pulled the girl to sit sideways on his lap. Her right arm rested across his shoulders for support while his left hand rested on her lower back and waist to help her keep her balance on him since her legs were now off the ground._

_He then used his right hand to grab Pepper's left and placed light kisses on each one of her fingertips, reminding her of how much more affectionate with her he was becoming lately – even more so than Scott. When he was done, he rested her palm on his chest, right where his fast-beating heart was and kept her hand there by keeping his on top of hers. _

"_Why does it have to be you? Why can't it be someone else?"_

Her pity party was sickening and she could no longer take it anymore. She had to stop thinking about him and her together, and just deal with the consequences of her actions. She had set herself up. She had shot herself in the foot. She had pushed him away and sent him flocking over to the brunette. He had just done as she had asked, again.

_Her mouth went agape. She could not believe she had been the one to request to be left alone! Why would she ask him to forget about her? Not to contact her? Why had she not wanted anything to do with her life in New York, this being the only life she knew?_

"_**I mean it,"**__ the hologram continued. __**"Don't look for me. I'll arrest you if you do."**_

_Pepper remained silent and unmoving as the file closed and the lights came back on. There was so much information in that one projection; she could not wrap her head around it all. She was adopted. She had chosen to leave, to end it with him. She had asked him to leave her alone; to forget about it all. He had just been honoring her request. Even if he had kept her around and with him, he had not pursued a romantic relationship with her and had moved on with Maya Hansen. He was just doing as she had asked of him._

"Hey, Pepper! Mind if I sit here?"

Pepper's head snapped to her left to see the brunette smiling at her. The ginger nodded once and moved slightly to her right, so that the woman had more space to sit down next to her at the eating bench, and she immediately did.

"Where's the fiancé?" Maya asked.

Pepper shrugged. "Being worshipped somewhere, I guess. ESU is very happy with him right now, so I haven't heard much from him since he came back from the games."

"Boo," Maya said and rolled her eyes. "Is that why you're so down?"

"Yeah," she lied. "It's hard being without him," she added when her eyes crossed paths with Tony's who was staring directly at her and at the brunette from his position, at least twenty feet from them.

"I can imagine," Maya said. "Whenever Tony goes off on a mission, it's hard for me to be without him, too. I never know if he's coming back or not. It's nerve-wracking."

"_Trouble. I have to go."_

"_Go, where?"_

"_Mission," he told her and began calling on his Mark I outfit. With awe, Pepper watched the suit literally fly toward him and attach to his body as if it had always belonged there, and in seconds Tony Stark had disappeared behind the mask of Iron Man._

"_Tony, no!" she spat and shook her head in disbelief, catching him by surprise. "You can't do this! You-you just got back! You haven't even healed! You can't just go off to get injured __**again**__!"_

"_Pepper," he sighed, his voice disguised by the modulator. "This is what I do. This is what I've always done. It's nothing new. You've always sent me off and then welcomed me back. You just… you just forgot."_

"_Are you kidding me?" her anger was seeping out of every word and her arms flailed in the air. "Are you telling me I just let you go out there to possibly __**die**__ if something goes wrong? I don't believe it! I don't…" her head shook vehemently. "I can't… I can't let you go alone."_

"I remember that feeling," Pepper whispered and finally looked away from Tony. "It wasn't the best."

Maya noticed that the billionaire's eyes had now shifted from staring at the both of them to staring just at the redhead and she began to panic. She could not let her guard down now, when she was so close to getting what she wanted; what she required. Her last extension was about to run out, and if she did not have in hand what she had come to collect for her employer, she and her stepfather would pay greatly for her mistake. There was no bluffing her way through this one either; the last call she had received had been from the man himself.

"Well," Maya began, an idea coming to mind. "I'm not going to keep you from looking for Scott for long. I just came here to ask you something and tell you something."

Pepper shifted her face to her left to stare at the brunette.

"What is it?"

"First: I'd like to ask you to be my maid of honor. And second: I kinda need an answer to it now because Tony and I have decided on a date already, and it's going to be very soon."

Pepper swallowed hard.

"How soon?"

"This year. Two months. August 14th."

Under the table, Pepper dug her nails into her skin.

"August 14th?"

"Yup. I wanted to get married in July, but he insisted we got married on August 14th, and… oh… my God!" Maya briefly covered her face with her hands. "I'm SO sorry, Pepper! That's… that's your birthday! I'm so sorry!"

Pepper looked away.

"It's alright. It's no biggie. It'll be OK. I'm sure I can skip a birthday this year," she said before she let her anger get the best of her. "In fact, I can totally ignore the fact that you guys are getting married on my birthday if you two promise to be at my wedding."

"Well, of course, Pepper! Did you guys already set a date?"

Pepper glared at Tony for a second and he was visibly taken aback by the sudden change in her demeanor.

"Yeah, we did."

"Oh, awesome. When is it?"

"This year, too," Pepper said with a smile. "Very soon."

xxxXXXxxx

He was not sure why he had let Maya drag him to this party he knew he had no business attending. He was not a track fan, he was not an ESU student, and he had not wanted to celebrate any accomplishment of the lying bastard that was Scott Summers. The inventor had recently found out that Pepper had never been pregnant from him or anyone else, and he was still fuming at his personal belief that the jock had orchestrated the entire thing just to piss him off and set the final barrier between him and the ginger.

Needless to say, Maya's cunning and planning skills had also helped in solidifying in him the lie that the charade had been Scott's plan all along, and that she had been played by the sun-glassed man as much as the inventor had been played. Tony felt he had no reason not to believe Maya's words since she had been honest to a fault with him – or so he thought, and Scott had every reason to try to tear apart the last hope he had ever had of getting back together with Pepper.

_And to think I actually felt sorry for the guy! What a jerk!_

His eyes looked away from the celebratory wave taking place to his right and he eyed Pepper again. She was staring back at him with a devious look he did not like, and even if he felt as if he should have returned the death glare he was currently receiving from her, he could not make himself do anything else but dumbly stare back.

The redhead eventually looked away from him and smiled at the brunette, who then clapped with enthusiasm before she hugged Pepper. Tony was aware that Maya had gone to talk to Pepper about being her maid of honor for the wedding they were yet to set a date for, and he figured Pepper had just accepted to be part of his wedding planning; a wedding he was not sure if he would be able to go through with his fiancée.

Seconds later, he saw Maya stand up from her position next to Pepper and she quickly made her way back to him. He again put on his complacent face, and he had to will himself not to look beyond the incoming brunette and to Pepper. Thankfully for him, a crowd of students that were migrating from one booth to the other walked by behind Maya, and by the time they cleared the road, Pepper was nowhere to be found.

"She said yes!" Maya began, again sat on his lap and surrounded his shoulders with her arms. His arms surrounded her waist to keep her from falling, and he plastered a happy smile on his face.

"Great!" he replied. "That's great!"

"It is! But she did place one condition, though," the brunette said, hoping that her plan worked and that her nervousness was not given away by the shake of her hands.

"A condition? Really?" Tony shrugged. "What condition?"

"She wants us to make sure that we're available to attend her wedding. I'm still her maid of honor and all, but she wants _you_ to give her away since her dad won't be here on time for the wedding."

"W-what?" Tony spat. "She-she wants _me_ to give her away?"

"I know! Isn't that great? I think it's a great opportunity for you guys to make peace, finally. So I told her you'd do it."

"You what?"

"I told you her you'd do it! Why not, Tony? I think it's about time you guys got over this already. Besides, who else could give her away if not you?"

"How about her dad? _He_ should be giving her away, not me."

"Hello? Did you not _hear_ me? She's getting married before he comes back!"

"Why, what's the hurry?"

Maya shrugged. "I don't know. Love?"

"Sure," Tony mumbled. "Love. So, when's the wedding?"

"September," Maya began, paused for a moment to make sure she enunciated her next words, and that she observed his reaction. "September 17, this year."

Tony narrowed his eyes and Maya knew her plan had worked.

_"There's a library on the third floor, and a small lab I've been building so I can work from home. The elevator is at the end of the hall and the code to go up is 1357. The code to enter the lab is 09172011, but I need to add your thumbprint to the database before you can use it."_

_ The ginger nodded to him._

_ "09172011? Is that standing for September 17, 2011?"_

_ "Uhm, yeah, it is. Why?" he eyed her nervously as they continued walking down the hall of the second floor until they reached the third door before the last on the left side of the hall._

_ "Is that date significant to you?" she asked but did not immediately receive a response when Tony opened the door they had just arrived at and pushed it open._

_ "It's the first day I went to the Academy," he said and felt as if he was lying to her even though his response was partially correct. The true reason why he had chosen that code was because not only was it the same one Pepper had used to keep the __**Private Eye**__ file locked, but it was also the day he and Pepper had first met._

That did it for him.

She was getting married. To Scott. On the day he and she had met.

And she wanted him to give her away.

_Fine!_ Tony thought. _FINE! THAT'S IT!_

The inventor looked up to stare at the brunette, who had a fake questioning look on her face as she waited for his response. He stared at her for what felt like an eternity as a final memory of he and Pepper came to mind.

_ "All I want… all I really want… is to have __**never**__ met you. You… you wanted me out of your life? Well," she gulped. "You can be sure you'll get that now."_

"Tony?" the brunette waved a hand in front of his face. "Is everything alright?"

Tony took in a deep breath to recover her senses, carefully stood up from the chair, and grabbed both of Maya's hands in both of his. He gave her a bright smile and she smiled back at him, cocking her head to the side.

"What?"

"Let's get married," he said, determination pouring from his voice and Maya chuckled.

"We ARE getting married, Tony. You've already asked me and I've already said yes."

"No," he shook his head and then began pulling her with him towards the Stark Bike. "I meant: let's get married. Right now."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Man! I think that's the mother of all cliffies, huh? But DO NOT PANIC! This chapter is the last of the low points as far as anti-pepperony, and I think we can agree it is the absolute lowest. Things are going to change real quick. It's all uphill from here.


	12. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

She had no idea it would all come down to this. Not after everything that had happened in their lives, not after everything they had lived through together; not after she had almost married him in three months' time.

The warm summer breeze that made her long, red tresses move and caressed her face, was not enough to prevent the shiver that ran down her entire body at hearing his words; at finding out the truth about him. A truth that was as shocking to her as finding out that her memories had been altered; perhaps even worse than that. Why was it that men liked to lie to her while they slept with her? Was she just that stupid or was it just bad luck?

The two of them had remained silent for a long time, staring at everything but each other. An hour ago, they had arrived at the roof of her dorm room building, trying to avoid the crowds that had gathered at the common room downstairs to celebrate his birthday… and to say goodbye to him, too.

That had been shock #1: finding out from his roommate that Scott was leaving ESU and transferring to a private school to learn to control and develop his abilities while surrounded by _his kind_.

_His kind_, she thought. That had been shock #2.

He had not even bothered to tell her about it until now; just as he had not bothered to tell her that, for almost the past two years, she had been dating and had almost married a mutant. Not to mention that, for the last two months, he had been growing close to Jean Grey behind her back.

Seeing someone else: shock #3.

"It's for the best, you know? We… we were never going to be happy together, Pepper. You must know that."

Ironically, she did know that, but him breaking it off with her had still been shock #4.

"I-I just wish you would've told me that months ago," she hugged herself. "I thought you said you didn't like to waste time."

"I don't… I tried to make it work but… it was never meant to be. I know how you feel about people like me, and I know that you're still in love with _him_."

_Him_, Pepper thought bitterly and clenched her jaw. It always came back to him. He, who was now engaged to Maya Hansen. He, who appeared to be extremely happy without her.

"If I still loved him, Scott, then why am I with you?"

Scott smiled sadly. "I don't know, you tell me. I don't think even you know why. But I do know that you love him. You… you said it just last night… in your sleep… after we…"

Pepper closed her eyes in shame.

Scott closed the distance between them and held her in his arms for the last time. He was not even staying the night; Professor Charles Xavier was waiting for him downstairs to take him with him to his School for Gifted Youngsters as soon as he returned to the ground floor. He had already packed his bags and all.

_Gifted_, she thought. _Scott is gifted; gifted to have found where he belongs._

If only she could do the same.

They remained in each other's arms for a moment, both caught in their own worlds. Scott felt like a jerk for doing this to the redhead, but his heart was no longer in it and he knew that he was developing strong feelings for another redhead; one that could literally read his mind. Pepper was not sure what to feel right now. Her life with Scott had been a rollercoaster of conflicting emotions, and now that she had thought that she would finally take a step in the right direction by marrying him, he had dropped a bombshell on her. Sadly, she could not even be mad at him for it.

He finally pulled away from her, kissed her forehead and she could not help but to give him a tearful smile. Even if she had always had feelings for the inventor, even if her genius boy had always owned most of her heart, there had still been some space for the jock in sunglasses, and he was taking part of her with him tonight, no matter what.

Scott dried her tears with his thumbs, cupped her face with his hands and then pressed his lips on hers. Pepper knew why he was doing it; it was not out of romantic love. It was a way to show her some respect, affection, even apologize to her in a way that words could not express. She knew it, because she had done that with Tony many times when they had lived together. She knew it, because she felt the same way right now. He finally pulled away from her face but did not let go of her, and she gave him a lopsided smile.

"Is it because I can't shoot lasers out of my eyes?" she asked in a joking manner, for a moment feeling stupid that she had never put two and two together. His powers. His _mutant_ powers. They were the reason why he had been able to sustain the E-Zombie attack. They were the reason why he had been able to kill the four enemies that had tried to kill her, and he had done so only with his bare hands… and eyes.

All this time she thought that he had just had plenty of good luck!

"If it was another time, Pepper, another life… if you had never met Tony and I had not been born like this…"

Pepper nodded in understanding. He did not have to complete his statement.

"Well, then I guess this is goodbye," she said and sniffled. "I hope… I hope you're happier than you'd ever been with me… with her…"

"And, I…" he inhaled deeply. "And I hope that Stark comes to his senses and realizes no one will ever love him like you do. You two deserve to be together. Even I know that and I should be the last person to want that. But I know he makes you happy, _real _happy, and that's all I ever wanted you to be."

They shared a final hug and a kiss on the cheek, and her eyes never left his form until he disappeared behind the door of the roof access room. Pepper waited a few seconds to make sure she was completely alone before she fell to her knees, covered her eyes and sobbed.

"I do," she said. "I'm sorry, Scott. I do love Tony Stark."

But it was too late for being sorry now.

**THE END**

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Well, that's one down, right? Let's see what happens to Maya and Tony now. See you in the next story: _The Third Year_; the halfway point of what's to come.


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